Strandpiel
by A.A. Pessimal
Summary: A girl with a foot in two continents and how she responds to dual nationality. Glimpses into the later life of Bekki Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons and her wider family.
1. die Boeman

_**Strandpiel**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.**_

 _ **In Saffie slang on this world, a "soutpiel" is a person caught between two continents. Nimbus Llewellyn, a long-time reader, would know. The idea is that one foot is in South Africa. The other might be in Europe, North America or Australia or New Zealand. But the general idea is that the person is caught between two places and has roots in both: "Sout…" is Suid Afrika. The "piel" is that bit of the anatomy which, metaphorically speaking, is dangling in the ocean in between. This is an uncomfortable position to be in even when, strictly speaking, the person in question does not in fact have a "piel" to dangle.**_

 _ **How to put this in a Discworld context? Well, "strandvoerts" is the best Afrikaans/Dutch I can find for "Rimwards". Message me if you know better. And a piel is a piel on both worlds. Hence, "strandpiel".**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.**_

 _ **Slight revision to tidy up and address little inconsistencies pointed out by reader "Guest". Thank you, anonymous person. Good points. Chapter Two will come soon.**_

 _ **Nap Hill, Ankh-Morpork.**_

The bogeyman blinked in the murky dark shadows of the child's bedroom. Bogeymen are not bright creatures. Their existential imperative is simple: find child, frighten child. Wake house. Interrupt sleep of parents who rush from their sleep to reassure and soothe child and assure them there's nothing there. Go "hur, hur, hur!" and leave, with a glowing sense of job satisfaction.

But this bogey was experiencing a dawning sense of worry all of his very own. It wasn't going according to plan. Not at all. He recalled learning from the other bogeymen in Biers that nobody had done Spa Lane in ages. He'd asked if this was okay. He was a new bogey in town, after all, the others had their beats, and a strict hierarchy applied. He didn't want to poach anyone's turf. There was such a thing as professional courtesy, after all. The other bogeys had suddenly gone poker-quiet and said "help yourself, friend".

He should have taken that as a warning…

He'd got into the house on Spa Lane alright. And standing in the darker shadows of a garden in Spa Lane, he could sense quite a few young children. His only difficulty had been the sheer giddying amount of choice available here. The bogey was irresistably drawn, in the end, to one particular house and to one particular upstairs window, drawn to a sleeping child no older than around about three or four. Or possibly five. Bogey hunting instinct was _unerring_ when it came to prey.

But far from being frightened, the child, a female of about four or five with red hair, had sat herself up in bed and was watching with intent interest to see what would happen next. She had drawn her knees up to her chin and was observing over the top of them with quiet intense eyes.

She had also reached over to a book at the bedside and flicked it open.

There had been a blur of motion. And now the bogey, half-hidden in the shadows behind the door, could hear a voice at _his_ shoulder, speaking from where _he_ couldn't see the speaker - but could still clearly hear the voice. It was worrying.

"You're in the wrong place, friend." the voice said. "You picked the wrong house. Me and Bekki here, we go back a year or two. She done nice things for me. She give me a voice. She got me to break my conditioning. I owe her."

The bogey found himself gulping. The voice had overtones, somehow, of glowing red eyes and fangs. It sounded demonic.

"But since you're here." The voice went on. "Fancy a bit of coffee? I think I could manage some cream, too."

The bogey registered a low insistent growling. It got louder. Then two shapes detached themselves from the darkness. They became two of the largest dogs the bogey had ever seen. Angry dogs. Big angry dogs.

"Oh, did I mention Kaffee and Crème are Howondalandian Ridgebacks? Bred to hunt lions. Make really good guard dogs! And right now, they're guarding Bekki. They _defend_. It's their wossname, imperative. _Soek_ , guys." the unseen voice said.

The bogey screamed. Loudly enough to wake others. This was almost lucky for the bogey. Who later on would come to realise, with a shudder, that being ripped limb from limb by angry Ridgebacks would have been the _easy_ way. In quick succession, several intent-looking goblins scrambled through a tiny door in the side of the chimney-stack. Goblins were parents too, had no human parent illusions about bogeymen being figments of the imagination, and who these days had a zero-tolerance policy towards nocturnal home invasions. These goblins were armed and showed every inclination to respond. And then things got worse for the bogey. The bedroom door opened and a figure was silhouetted against the light. A barefoot human woman in a nightdress. She had long unbound red hair and she was carrying a very big blade. She had the look of somebody whose sleep had been interrupted, and who was correspondingly a bit tetchy about it.

"Kaffee! Crème! _Bly_!" she commanded. She flipped the door back with the blade of her sword and glared at the bogey without fear. And a great deal of annoyance. The dogs, still growling, padded to her side, their eyes expressing an intent of causing maximum damage to the intruder. The bogey, terrified now, registered other humans behind her. One looked like a wizard. He also registered the sword rising. The woman had every appearance of one who knew what it was for.

" _Tokoloshe_." she said. " _Die Boeman._ _Jy is in my huis._ _Jy is hier om my dogter te skrik."_

Her words were spoken softly and had a quiet menace to them. The bogey held his hands up in a placatory way. The woman glared at him and the sword, straight, heavy and designed to cleave, rose higher.

"Bogeyman." she said, in Morporkian this time. "You came into my home to ettack my daughter. Explain to me why I should not kill you."

"Errr…" said the bogey.

"Have _you_ chosen the wrong house, friend!" the original voice said, with a demonic gloat. The woman spared a glance. She smiled slightly.

"Be quiet, Grindguts." she said. "You know you are not meant to be out of The Book. I may request my husband returns you there. _Permanently."_

"Yes, ma'am!" the creature said, quickly. And respectfully. He noted the Wizard, standing behind her, nodded in quiet emphasis.

She smiled again. Slightly. She patted her stomach with her free hand.

"The lest time I was cerrying a child, this house was invaded. My household fought. The etteckers were destroyed. The survivors did not survive for very long. They were _henged._ Now it eppears. New child, new invader."

She nodded to the angry goblins.

"We will not be ettecked in our home egain by night intruders. My people are prepared for this. I em en Essessin, _tokoloshe_. End I have inhumed things of the night before. End for my daughter, _I will inhume you!"_

She stepped forward. The child in the bed, who had winced at the reminder a little brother or sister was on the way and she would very soon cease to be the only child, spoke up.

"Please, mummy! Don't kill him, let him go. I'm sure he's very, very, frightened and he won't do it again? Please, mummy?"

Mummy paused, smiled and lowered her weapon. Only a little, but it still went down.

"Do you hear that, _Boeman_?" she demanded. "You came to terrify my daughter end she hes no reason to like you or to speak up for you, but she is. It is very possible she will grow up to be a far better human being than her mother, who _will_ kill you. Without blinking. She takes efter her father in this respect, end he is a truly gentle man. But be warned. He too inhumed in defence of this house end his family."

The Wizard – he had to be one, he stank of magic and radiated intent to use it – frowned at him. Bogeymen knew from the cradle, or their equivalent of, not to even _try_ to invade the personal space of magic users, who could get as emphatic as Assassins about these things.

The woman paused, and breathed out. She pointed her blade at the open window.

"Leave this place. Never return. Be warned. Go. _Voet…_ "

The woman controlled herself. She restrained her dogs. They gave every indication of wanting blood and conclusive retribution. As did a gaggle of armed and irritated goblins.

"Just go."

There was a _whoosh_ in the air. Seconds later, there was no bogeyman. The bogeyman sniffed the air. There were little boys in the house next door… **(1)** and another little girl in the house two doors along… **(2)** The hunting imperative was strong. Stronger than caution. He would soon discover _why_ bogeymen gave Spa Lane a wide berth.

In the house behind him, Johanna Smith-Rhodes settled her household to sleep again. In the quiet of their bedroom, she resheathed her machete and sighed deeply. Ponder Stibbons looked over to her, ready to talk to her about things.

"Ponder, what do we _do_ ebout Bekki?" she asked, a mother who was running out of ideas. "She was not even frightened of thet creature. More like _fescinated_ with it."

"And Grindguts." Ponder said. "He was only ever meant to be a pop-up-sprite in a picture book."

"A picture book aimed et _wizards_." Johanna said, meaningfully. "Or to be precise, et their children."

Ponder winced. _Baby's First Grimoire_ had caused ructions in the household. Strictly speaking, Bekki was too old for it now. But she loved the Book. It had been impregnated with first-generation Imps, meant to be bound to the page, to perfume limited functions to delight a child, and open the eyes of a magically-inclined toddler to things of magic in a safe and controlled environment. A little song and dance, to introduce a young enquiring mind to simple language with repetitive and simple song-and-dance routines. And being a picture book written by wizards for young boys with magical talent, the pictures had themes revolving around elementary magical concepts. Such as Grindguts The Destroying Demon – who had developed a mind of his own and gone beyond his programming.

Grindguts had turned out to be an amiable and benign creature who loved and adored Bekki and would do anything for her. And somehow he'd learnt to untie himself from his bonds to the Book and leave it to roam independently. It had caused Ponder no end of headaches. He had realised, uneasily, that at the age of four, his daughter had enough magical talent to create a familiar spirit. He was keeping an eye on this. Grindguts had been told his independent sentience was conditional and only there under sufferance. Do not do anything to annoy Johanna. Please. Don't.

"Well. When she's old enough you're going to take her to the Butts and teach her about weapons. To see if she takes after you as much as she does me. Hopefully that'll ground her in mundane things." Ponder said. "In some children magic is there to begin with, but fizzles out after about age five, when they find other things they like. They say Rincewind started out that way, with just enough pre-school magic to give the wrong impression, but it fizzled out after he turned five or six. By then the University had accepted him, and we realised far too late he'd lost it all. So we were stuck with him."

Johanna sighed, heavily.

"We'll see, Ponder. I want to take her to the Ridings soon. To get her beginning her riding lessons. If she gets eccess to ponies end horses, thet might ebsorb her energies. I hope so!"

* * *

 **(1)** 16 Spa Lane: Owned by Emmanuelle, Comptesse de Lapoignard, who was indeed the mother of two young boys. And principal instructor in Swords and Bladed Weapons at the Assassins' Guild School.

 **(2)** 14 Spa Lane: Owned by Doctor Davinia Bellamy, mother of Davinal Bellamy Junior, a playmate of Bekki's and the daughter of a woman who taught Applied Botany at the Assassins' Guild School.

number 4 Spa Lane was also owned by Emmanuelle, Comptesse de Lapoignard. She rented it out to graduate students and teaching assistants at the Guild School and at any one time there could be up to eight young Assassins in residence. There were good reasons why creatures of the night who knew their local geography avoided Spa Lane. A several-times-winner of the Teatime Prize (for assassination strategies directed at supernatural creatures) lived on Spa Lane. ****  
****

**Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future.**

 **Lots of lovely stuff about Dutch folklore and cultural mythology. The _Boeman_ travelled to Africa with Dutch emigrants and collided with the native myth of the _tokoloshe_ , a native African bogeyman whose rationale was to prowl and frighten by night. Afrikaans, apparently, uses both words interchangeably for what English knows as the bogeyman. Bogeys must have emigrated to Howondaland alongside the first Vondalaanders. **


	2. Die Benamingheid

_**Strandpiel 2: The Naming.**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.**_

 _ **I was stumped as to what the first rite of passage of any new person would be called on the Discworld. "Christening" wouldn't cut it on a world without Christianity. "Baptism" might work but even that has specifically Christian associations. Judaism has the**_ **briss** _ **for boys and the**_ **zeved habat** _ **for girls. Briss ideally eight days after birth, the zeved habat appears to have no fixed date but is done as near to birth as possible; the child remains officially Nameless till the day. So that's Cenotians, then.**_

 _ **Then I had the bright idea of re-reading Carpe Jugulum and noted that Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre got her name conferred by The Reverend Mightily Oats at… The Naming.**_

 _ **So.**_ **The Naming** _ **it is, then. Or maybe in this unique case:**_ **Die Benaming** _ **, or**_ **Die Benamingheid.**

 **Tidying and editing slightly.**

 _ **We begin at Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork. Some years previously. (1)  
**_

"I'm sorry, Johanna." Pieter van der Graaf said, taking her hand gently. "I do know how you feel about this, and I really do feel bad for you. But some things are out of even my hands. It _has_ to be him. Even though the man is a pompous insensitive idiot. He's the only minister of the Church in Ankh-Morpork, for one thing."

Johanna nodded, grimly. She accepted the horrible reality. It had to be him. Even though the Reverend van Niedermaaer was somebody she placed in the Verkramp category of self-righteous, ultra-conservative, foaming-at-the-brain, borderline lunatic that her native country not only nurtured, but placed into positions of authority. He was a minister of the Kerrigian Reformed Church of the Great Gods Blind Io and Offler, which had approval as the State Religion of Rimwards Howondaland. Johanna had been birthed into this church as indeed had just about everybody else in her nation. It was really the only option for the Naming of her newborn daughter. Ponder had no religion as such. Johanna wished he did; it would have made it easier to defy convention and bypass the crushing weight of expectattion her nation and her family were forcing on her.

"You know how it works, Johanna." her uncle said. "It's our national religion. It's protected and promoted by law as state faith."

He paused and amended himself. Although a career diplomat, Pieter van der Graaf was also a honest man.

At least, a religion for _white_ people. Van Niedermaaer was wished on me as Chaplain to the Embassy. By extension he's Pastor to our people in this city. And Bekki gets full citizenship by right of parentage. With all consequent rights. And obligations. Which means she pretty much _has_ to be Named into the Kerrigian Church. It's _expected_. Therefore…"

Johanna sighed.

"I know, Uncle."

Pieter, her nation's Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork, gave her a consoling hug.

"Your parents are here, and they pretty much insist. Well, at least your mother absolutely insists. And I know my sister. When she insists, things _happen_. Your Aunt Friejda, too. At least your father thinks so long as _somebody_ in a dog-collar does what he has to and blesses the child, he's easy. So long as he has the blessed decency to keep the ceremony short, so they can get down to wishing the child health and happiness over a big drink. Which in your father's mind is the _real_ purpose of the event."

Pieter and Johanna shared a smile.

"And I'll be there sharing the bottle with him. Especially after everything else that happened." **(2)** her uncle added.

"I think _I'll_ need a very big drink too, by then," Johanna agreed, ruefully.

The Naming was arranged and agreed. The disregarded parents sat to one side, as other people made the Arrangements. The Other People were principally mrs Agnetha Smith-Rhodes, grandmother of the child to be named, and Lady Friejda van der Graaf, wife of the Ambassador and great-aunt to the child. Other invited planners dutifully submitted their own contributions for consideration. Johanna, aware that she was merely the mother, sat back and considered the priest.

There was, she knew, a chapel at the Embassy. Recently the White Howondalandian community in the City had been allowed a small building off Gods Street – it had to be off Gods Street, religious space was at a premium and the smaller churches had to scramble for what they could get. It had inevitably been refurbished in the austere Kerrigian style that was almost mandated for kirks and chapels at Home. Religion at Home had no room for frippery or flounces, preferring a stark empty simplicity thought ideal for people to contemplate their Gods, without risk of distraction by worldly things. Naturally the Naming was to happen there. Johanna and Ponder had wanted to book one of the larger and more visually attractive side chapels at Small Gods for the Naming, but had been over-ruled by the committee of elder females who were supervising the Event.

Johanna sighed. She could have accepted this. But her nation's only church in the City was presided over by the Reverend Erasmus van Niedermaaer. Who she found hard to accept. But who had a thriving religious community, almost exclusively made up of expatriate Rimwards Howondalandians. **(3)** People went to his Octeday services because.. well, there was a feeling you _had_ to. Partly because however tedious the Service, it was a reminder of Home, keeping up the old ways. A lurking dread that if you didn't attend, people would _notice_. That as it was the authorised and established state religion, somebody was there taking attendance and making careful notes as to who didn't show. _Written_ notes. To be attached to files later, at the Bureau of State Security. Liutnant Verkramp, the BOSS sector head in Ankh-Morpork, was a dedicated communicant. And look on the bright side, it drew community together and the after-service social was something to look forward to. In summer, there might even be a social _braai_.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes had evaded attendance for a long time, pointing out that as a resident housemistress at the Assassins' Guild School, she had to set an example by taking her girls to compulsory Octeday Chapel at the School, and that also adequately met her own spiritual needs. But having married and moved out, relinquishing the resident pastoral role at Raven House, she had discovered she was now bereft of an excuse. Reluctantly, she had made the effort to attend and had discovered it was as utterly dreadful as she'd expected. She had made Ponder attend with her, pointing out he could only improve his understanding of _Vondalaans_ and the more formal Kerrigian used for the liturgy. Ponder had sighed deeply and started attending with her. He had conceded that at least his understanding of his wife's first language was rapidly improving. But that _priest_ , Johanna…

The Kerrigian Reformed Church of the Great Gods Blind Io and Offler, Die _Kerrigisch Hervormde Kerk van die Groetegotts Io en Offler van Hovondalaand,_ was held to be heterodox by both the Ionian and the Offlerian establishments. In layman's terms, it managed to diverge from the accepted orthodox doctrines, whilst remaining a carefully measured theological judgement or two on the right side of being schismatic and heretical. The practical result of this, as High Priest Hughnon Ridcully once remarked in conversation with Johanna Smith-Rhodes, was that "Unfortunately, that bloody total arsehole of a priest of yours is still a brother-in-Io, just about, and much as I'd like to, I cannot turn him around and propel him out of the door of me Temple on the toecap of me boot, d'y'follow? I still have to show the bloody damned man the courtesies."

The Offlerian establishment felt much the same. Offler was a god of the Klatchian, or Howondalandian, continent (it depended which end of the continent you'd been born on), and the first emigrants from the Central Continent had taken the pragmatic point of view that they may as well combine the two and have one Kerk that venerated both Great Gods equally. Thus the Kerrigian Reformed Church managed to simultaneously be a fully paid up member of both congregations. As both the Ionians and the Offlerians benefitted from this in terms of bums-on-pews and more importantly in terms of cash-in-offertory-boxes, this was not an issue in itself. It was just held that time and distance had caused the daughter faith in the Colonies to, err, _diverge_ a little in terms of doctrine, theology and pastoral practice. In some potentially worrying and embarrassing ways. **(4)** This business of being appointed as Established State Church, for instance.

To which the Elders of the Synod of the Kerrigian Reformed Church replied - yes, and your point _is,_ exactly? Some of your churches don't believe trolls have souls to save. Some don't even admit _dwarfs_. You're divided about goblins. _Vorbei_ , once you've sorted _that_ one out, come back and raise the issue of _our_ teaching on blecks and natives.

Johanna admitted that like so many other things, religion in her native Rimwards Howondaland went its own bloody-minded way, raising a variable number of fingers at the rest of the Disc and inviting it to go voetsaak if you don't like the way we do things here. It's _our_ country, and listen, Morporkian, who won the bloody War of Independence anyway?

She sighed again and wondered if the Morporkians had been right about the _Boor_ thing. It had began, she suspected, as a snidey and deliberate mis-spelling of the word _Boer_. The two words were pronounced virtually the same way. Her Boer people had heard about this. Then thy'd shrugged, raised a metaphorical finger or two towards Ankh-Morpork, and started using the word with pride to describe themselves. _Boer_ and _Boor_ were used virtually interchangeably. Almost as a badge of pride. It summed her _Volk_ up. Ever since what Ankh-Morpork persisted in calling The Boor War, which her Volk proudly called The War of Independence.

And now a new daughter had been born to the Boer volk – albeit several thousand miles away from Home – and because of this she had to deal with the biggest Boor of all. Who was, despite all her inclinations and wishes, booked to preside over her official Naming.

Johanna reflected that the Naming had already been done, on the memorable night of Bekki's birth, in a manner that involved closest family and a couple of dear family friends, and that was a million times more important and significant. Wasn't it? But it still had to be done officially. Under the auspices of the State Church. After which, Uncle Pieter had confirmed, Bekki's status as a full citizen of Rimwards Howondaland would be Official, and her birth could be registered, and the Birth Certificate issued. Vetinari had got in first, unsurprisingly. Johanna had received a personal letter of congratulations, confirming Bekki's status by birth and father as a full subject of Ankh-Morpork and subject to all the rights and obligations thereof. Signed by the Patrician himself, and you could not get a more emphatic statement of nationality than that. She wondered if Vetinari had some long-term objective in mind, and wondered what sort of things her adult daughter might end up doing for a living in twenty years time. And who for.

 _All in good time..._

She considered the Reverend Erasmus van Niedermaaer. She shuddered slightly. The man even looked like a well-fed rat, or at least some species of higher rodent in a dog-collar. Smug, oily, self-righteous, proclaiming from the pulpit about the Io and Offler-given superiority of the white race, the unquestionable and Gods-ordained requirement for separation of the races, but do not get me wrong, brethren and sisters, we are called by the Gods to be stewards of the peoples and to treat the blacks kindly and with correct paternal guidance in their Gods-ordained role as servants and labourers, that they might find their own place in the world and be righteous in the sight of the Gods, for they are also created by the Gods and are their children…

Ponder winced at this too. As he remarked, somehow the pastor's being _reasonable_ and _understanding_ was ten times worse than if he'd been openly abusive and derogatory about black people. The fact he was trying conscientiously to be kind to them and to _make allowances_... Johanna thought this was one of the finer and more adorable things about Ponder. He too did not like the idea of this man being priest to their family and his having any sort of role, however small, in the upbringing of their daughter. But they were stuck with him, it seemed. Politics, expediency and good citizenship dictated this. Again she wondered if there was any way around this.

And now he, the obnoxious priest, was sitting here in her actual living room, primly nursing a cup of tea, smoothly going over the details of the Naming with those who would have roles to play on the day. As many of them were not Howondalandian, the discussion was in Morporkian, as a courtesy. Johanna, who as merely the mother of the child was sidelined, carried on watching the people and their body language to read what it told her. Blessing the maid, standing dutifully away from the group ready to refresh teacups, _her_ body language conveying that she wished she was somewhere else. Johanna understood this. _At least she's black. Invisible till needed. A mobile part of the furniture in the eyes of a lot of people here._

Her parents. Who'd arrived on the Night and were showing no inclination to go home again. _They can't. Father was involved on the Night and he's a witness at the trial. Till then I'm stuck with them. At least Father is impatient and clearly struggling to treat the man with due courtesy. And Mother was brought up to be dutiful and respectful to ministers of religion. But she has frowned slightly._

Uncle Pieter and Aunt Friejda. _Uncle has the look on his face. It is clearly saying "Put up with this, Johanna. Try not to make any waves. If you can." Meanwhile my aunt is filled with pride and importance and determined to make this a family day to remember. She is giving that ridiculous little priest unforced respect and attention. But this is demanded of her in her position._

Cousin Julian. _He has to be here as he is Family and has consented to be Bekki's official Godsfather. I want him to be. I cannot think of a better man. But he clearly thinks much of this is nonsense. And he represents his father, Uncle Charles Smith-Rhodes. Who might as well be sitting here himself. As the silly and toxic little priest knows. Uncle Charles is not a man to be disregarded. Nor is Julian._

Johanna reached across and took her husband's hand. She smiled at him reassuringly _. Poor Ponder. Still finding his feet among people of a different culture, with different ideas of what is important, who in the main speak a different language which he is still learning, and intimidated by my father, although Father does really like him. How can I make this work for him?_

And others...

Irena Politek was present and making a point of treating the priest with absolutely correct and impeccable courtesy. Johanna thought she knew why. The Kerrigian Reformed Church still held to the old doctrine that had prevailed in Sto Kerrig centuries ago when the emigrants had left to colonise Howondaland. _Witches are an abomination in the eyes of the God Blind Io and shall not be permitted to dwell among you, nor shall a woman discovered Witch be permitted to live._

Ionianism in the Central Continent had abandoned this doctrine a long time ago. It had persisted in Howondaland. If there were witches in her native country, they were operating clandestinely. _White witches, anyway._ Johanna smiled slightly. One of the lesser duties of the Bureau of State Security at Home was witch-finding. They had to enforce that law too. It was written into Law at home – which was also carried over from the old laws of Sto Kerrig that the emigrants had taken with them.

And right now, the Reverend van Niedermaaer was raising objections to the idea of allowing a Witch into his Kerk. And indeed of permitting one to be a Godsmother. Irena was being as pointedly polite as a Witch can be. Johanna was surprised the priest was not heeding the warning signs. _Ag, how long has he been in this City? And still alive?_

"Eish, man!" her father burst out. "This should not be up for discussion! Irena was there on that night. She brought me to this place, quickly, where I was needed. I thank her for that. She got Johanna to the hospital. She attended at the birth and helped our grand-daughter into this world. The child is even named after her and will carry the name Irena. She is a friend to our family, and I do not abandon my family's friends. She is Johanna's chosen Godsmother. Dominie, I am not a man to gainsay a minister of the Kerk. But I say to you. _Irena will be there on the day to be Godsmother to this child!"_

 _Be told,_ Johanna thought. _Father is nearly shouting at you. And Mother is nodding her agreement. Do not argue this further with my parents._

"I over-rule you." Uncle Pieter said to the priest, with calm authority. "You were appointed Chaplain to my Embassy. I am Ambassador. Officer Politek _will_ be present as Godsmother. I would not normally over-rule an Embassy staff member in their area of expertise except in great need. But, Chaplain, consider that Ankh-Morpork has no laws against witchcraft. Your Kerk is outside the Embassy and not covered by our laws. Local law and customs therefore apply. Johanna and Ponder have every right to nominate anyone they see fit as Godsparents. And as Ambassador I also have to consider that Officer Politek, _de facto_ , in the course of her employment by the government of Ankh-Morpork, represents the City. Are you _really_ going to say that Lord Vetinari's personal representative cannot attend the naming ceremony of a child who is also a subject of Ankh-Morpork? Are you?"

After a moment of reflection, this was reluctantly accepted, but under protest.

"Noted." said the ambassador, curtly. "Moving on? I trust you have no objection to the daughter of an eminent Bishop of the Church of Blind Io being the _other_ Godsmother?"

Miss Alice Band smiled at the priest, managing to convey sincerity and encouragement and sympathy to a member of the Church conducting a tough bit of pastoral work. Coincidentally, she reached down to adjust the set of her sword-hilt. It seemed like an incidental thing.

"The daughter of High Archbishop Band is completely acceptable, sir." The priest said.

"Pleased to hear it!" Alice said, affably. "Oh, and my father never made it to High Archbishop. You've overpromoted him there."

"Speaking of representatives of the City." another invitee said. She had an air of brisk efficiency about her and also conveyed a certain inability to tolerate idiots for very long. "Or at least of its _Guilds_. And though I appreciate the hospitality here, we really need to wrap this up quickly as Alice and I have got to be back at the School soon to resume classes. No, m'dear. You stand back. _I'll_ pour the tea. Take a break. Thank you. Oh, and here's something for your trouble."

Blessing the maid said " _Dankie, baas-lady..._ thank you, madam.", as she received a cash tip. Gratefuly, she stood back.

Joan Sanderson-Reeves smiled affably at the Howondalandians present, some of whom who seemed consternated that a white woman had not only _thanked_ a black servant, she'd actually given her a cash tip.

" _Noblesse oblige_ , you see." she said. "Not sure how you do these things in Howondaland, but over here, it's _expected_. Another cup, reverend? Let me pour…"

As Joan refreshed the minister's teacup, taking care to offer to do the same for anyone else who needed a refill, and adding a new cup for herself, she explained that the Guild of Assassins also had a clear interest here, given that Bekki's birth added a new member to the Guild's wider family and that the Guild felt strongly that this should be acknowledged, as in time it would be for the children recently born to the Comptesse de Lapoignard and Doctor Bellamy, who happen to be near-neighbours of Johanna.

"Is that how you like it, reverend? Sugar? Two? Let me… Anyway. As a member of the Dark Council, I was asked to pop by today to make the case for an acknowledgement to be made during the Service that young Rebecka is also by birth a member of our Guild family and the Guild will be keeping an eye on her as she grows. Who knows, she might well come to us later at the Guild School for her education, and we should make it clear at the start she's one of the Family…"

Joan expanded smoothly on this theme for a while. The nod and the slight smile she shared with Johanna went un-noticed.

* * *

"Well, we'll just have to get somebody to stand in." Johanna said. "Eish. Shame. I really hope he recovers quickly."

Uncle Pieter looked grave. There were barely two days to go before the day. And the city's only White Howondalandian minister of religion had been admitted to the Lady Sybil with severe stomach and gut problems. He would recover with no ill effects, Doctor Lawn had said, but was in no fit state to lead any sort of religious service. Not this Octeday, anyway.

"Who, I wonder? Van Niedermaaer might have been a dof, but he is the only priest of our Kerk in this city. Never mind. In the circumstances it cannot be helped. A stand-in priest to perform the Naming will be acceptable in emergency."

Mustrum Ridcully had dropped round for a drink. He would also be present at the Naming, representing the University. He'd heard about Joan Sanderson-Reeves expressing a wish for the Assassins to have a say. And, as he pointed out, Professor Stibbons was University and a wizard. Rebecka is one of our wider family too.

"Pity m'brother can't do it." he said, reflectively. "But I'm sure he can find you a good man in your time of need. His personal choice, mind you."

Johanna nodded. Emphatically. Ridcully's eyes twinkled at her. An outside observer might have suspected conspiracy if he's been looking closely.

"The personal recommendation of the High Priest of Blind Io." Pieter said. "That would be very acceptable."

Johanna smiled. It would cause a diplomatic row if High Priest Ridcully's selection of priest to perform her daughter's Naming was turned down. And Uncle Pieter was fine-tuned to avoiding diplomatic rows.

Pieter wondered, just for a second. It seemed too coincidental… but no. Probably just happenstance. Although Joan Sanderson-Reeves had taken over pouring the tea, _everybody_ had been drinking from the same pot. With the same milk-jug. There was no way the cups or the sugar could have been tainted. All he'd seen her do was pour the tea. And nobody else had gone down with anything. It probably really had been one of those things.

"But the service still has to be at the Kerk." Pieter said.

"Of course, Uncle." Johanna said. "That's understood."

* * *

 _ **From the Ankh-Morpork Times. Friday's late edition.**_

 _ **Fire at a church in Gods Street! Divine comment on the doctrines? Or human criticism of their pastoral practice? Watch investigating!**_

 **A serious fire broke out today at the local premises of the Kerrigian Reformed Church of Rimwards Howondaland. At about five this evening, flames were seen to erupt in the roof-space of the Kerk, established to represent the spiritual needs of the White Howondalandian community in our City.**

 **The alarm was raised by two students at the Assassins' Guild School who were visiting the Church, who bravely ascertained the extent of the fire then evacuated the building when they realised it was beyond their ability to deal with.**

 **Miss Mariella Smith-Rhodes (13) was visiting her Kerk for what she described as "a need for quiet spiritual reflection and a need to express thanks to the Gods following my two recent brushes with death". She was also taking the opportunity to repay her friend Miss Rivka ben-Divorah Bechstein (14), (who very kindly took time recently to give her friend a tour of the Cenotian Temple on Gods Street), to explain how religion is practiced in Rimwards Howondaland. These two brave and plucky girls, so recently embroiled in a desperate life-or-death fight against villains (as readers of the Times know) were alone in the Kerk and smelled smoke whilst making their devotions to their Gods.**

 **They hastily evacuated the burning Kerk and alerted golems, who proceeded to put the blaze out. Fire damage was insignificant, although greater damage was caused when one Golem, who was stamping out the fire, inadvertently fell through the rafters and into the nave. There was no damage to the Golem but the Kerk will now be out of commission for some weeks whilst repairs are carried out.**

 **Captain Angua von Überwald investigated on behalf of the Watch. She exlianed to the Times that following many inflammatory sermons on race relations preached by the resident minister, the Reverend Erasmus van Niedermaaer, the possibility cannot be ruled out that, perhaps, members of the city's Black Howondalandian community might have responded with inflammatory criticism of their own. Indeed, the Reverend van Niedermaaer has been warned by the Watch on several prior occasions that he should be more conciliatory on the issue of racial relations.**

 **Captain von Überwald emphasised that arson has now been conclusively ruled out and the fire, as far as can be ascertained, was caused by an improperly extinguished candle. She also gave credit to Miss Smith-Rhodes and Miss ben-Divorah for their brave and prompt actions. As indeed does the Times.**

 _ **From the Ankh-Morpork Times. Sunday edition.**_

 **Extra: a charitable benefactor in Rimwards Howondaland, the noted man of business and philanthropist Mr Charles Smith-Rhodes, has expressed sorrow and concern that the only White Howondalandian Church in the City is out of action through fire. Speaking through his son Julian, a member of the diplomatic community at their nation's Embassy, he is prepared to advance five thousand dollars as a contribution towards rebuilding the Kerk. He also expressed a hope that the naming ceremony for his grand-niece, the daughter of eminent residents Professor Ponder Stibbons and Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes, will still go ahead as planned, and that he is absolutely sure and certain that suitable premises and an acceptable stand-in priest can be found at short notice to preside.**

 **Correction: Miss Rivka ben-Divorah (14), who was present at the fire at the Kerrigian Kerk and who helped raise the alarm on detecting it, has asked us to make it absolutely clear that she was merely _visiting_ the Kerk as a guest and at no time did she ever actually _pray_ or make religious observance. We accept that our article made this erroneous and fallacious assumption, and are happy to accept that miss ben-Divorah, as a practicing Cenotian, rigorously observes her own Faith at the Cenotian Temple on Gods Street, and _nowhere else_. As her faith dictates and expects of her. We apologise for any embarrassment caused. **_Print this one in full. I get a feeling about this young lady. I'd far rather not have her graduate from the AGS in a few years with any bad feeling towards the Times. WdW.  
_

* * *

 _ **The Temple of Small Gods, Ankh-Morpork, Octeday:**_

The presiding priest smiled benevolently at his congregation. He was leading a service in three languages – Vondalaans, Morporkian and liturgical Kerrigian – and speaking all three faultlessly, although none was his first language.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled a very satisfied smile. And Bekki, in her arms today, was behaving herself flawlessly. She'd got a priest and a location of her own choosing. Perfect. Although it had taken a little arranging. She shared a knowing smile with her sister Mariella, who had helped out a lot. And she really appreciated the officiating priest. Uncle Pieter had breathed in deeply. But as he understood, he could not object, for diplomatic reasons, to an officiating minister who had the personal approval of High Priest Ridcully himself.

"In the all-seeing eyes of the Great God Blind Io." The priest continued, in a strong confident baritone voice. He looked down to the order of service and smiled slightly. He appreciated irony too.

"Let us now pray for Louis van Baalsteufel, President of the Republic of Rimwards Howondaland, that he continues to guide and govern the nation wisely and well, with concern for _all_ its peoples, and leads Howondaland to prosperity, and peace with all its neighbours."

Johana noted the emphasis on " _all its peoples_ " and " _peace with its neighbours_ " and smiled widely. Noting the effect on the congregation. Who were mainly, like her, White Howondalandian.

"And now we move to the singing of the National Anthem." the priest said. He nodded to the organist. There was some hesitation in the congregation who seemed, to a man and a woman, uncertain of what to do next. Then Pieter van der Graaf was the first to stand. He was closely followed by Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes. And Julian Smith-Rhodes.

And the priest, seemingly unaware of the incongruity and perhaps the enormity of what he was doing, sang the first line of the Anthem in a rich and carrying singing voice. His people were renowned for their singing voices.

" _Uit die blou van onse Hemel, uit de diepte van ons see…"_

Johanna stood and sang. This was mandatory. She reflected that the Reverend van Niedermaaer usually insisted on all four verses. But people were singing.

" _Oor ons ewige gebergtes, waar die kranse antwoord gee!"_

They sang all four verses. Then the priest expounded a sermon on the lines about _Kinders van Hovondalaand_ , noting that they were here today to celebrate the birth of a new child to Howondaland, one who although she had been born several thousand miles away in Ankh-Morpork was nevertheless a child of Howondaland though right of parentage and thus had a rich and long Howondalandian heritage. And therefore in these circumstances he was going to take the opportunity to talk about who qualified as a child of Howondaland, a son or daughter of that continent, which, as a son of Howondaland himself, he had the right to do…

And Rebecka Monika Irena Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons was duly Named in the eyes of all present. Uncle Pieter nodded to a clerk from the Embassy, and the birth certificate was duly completed and signed and handed to the parents. Bekki was now a Citizen.

Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes was the first to acknowledge the priest after the service. He offered his hand to Canon Clement Ineffibl, Ionian priest and Chaplain to the Guild of Assassins. And a lesser son of the Paramount King of the Zulu Empire. White Howondaland's hereditary enemy.

"A fine performance, _Dominie_." he said, using the respectful term for a minister of the Kerk. This was not lost on other people watching. A black priest was a foreign concept to many White Howondalandians.

"I'd be pleased if you took a drink with me."

" _Menheer_ Smith-Rhodes. I should be honoured."

"Although, _jislaik_ , I'd like to know how my daughter fixed _this_." Barbarossa added.

Clement looked over to her. She was engaged, as the proud mother after a Naming, in showing off her daughter to interested and attentive people. He smiled slightly.

"She is a very resourceful woman, _menheer_. And you have known her for longer than I have."

"True, by the Gods!" He clapped Clement on the shoulder. "I hear you have a sister called Ruth? Impressive young woman. I like her. She fought for my family, and that makes her okay in my eyes. Might get to like you, too. Now let's see about that drink, hey? Far rather drink with you people than fight you!"

* * *

 _There will be more. Damn, this got too long and timed out. Watch this tale for the next part. I've plotted out a LOT a lot of story during downtime at work… I've yet to get to the Witches At The Naming, for instance. They will have words to say. Definitely. Then we can get to Bekki at intervals as she grows up and goes into a Profession. And at least one of her sisters._

 **(1)** note for readers: this bit of the tale follows on more or less immediately from events related in **_Hypermesis Gravidarum_ **and the **Discworld Tarot** short **_The King of Swords._  
**

 **(2)** A callback to my tale _**Hyperemesis Gravidarum**_ , which describes events leading up to the birth of Bekki and the action of the night of her birth. It was a busy night.

 **(3)** You might think only White Howondalandians would be interested or would want (or have to) to attend a strict-rule Church. Or Kerk. But this was Ankh-Morpork. Some Morporkians were interested because it was _different_ and _novel._ Some for fairly innocent reasons - there were people who like Ponder Stibbons had married White Howondalandians. Some people who were learning the language and who wanted to assimilate. Some Assassin students who were doing the optional Saturday morning courses in Vondalaans language and culture, for instance. Others who were full-square behind the idea that Black Howondalandians were uppity buggers who needed to know their place, and that these Vondalaanders had some bloody sound ideas. But you got that sort of mentality _anywhere_. you also got discreet but suitably inclined people from the Palace Secretariat and the Cable Street Particulars, who paid special attention to the sermon being preached. And the God of the Month club had given it a go too. Just once.

 **(4)** The history of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, for instance. It remained in communion with the greater brotherhood of Protestant denominations around the world whilst causing angst over its doctrines regarding, for instance, the status of people who did not benefit from white skins, and concerning its extremely close associations with the white minority government of South Africa in apartheid days. If South Africa was otherwise embargoed and isolated in the world over apartheid, the argument went, then why was its state Church still given full membership of, for instance, the World Council of Churches? To which the WCC and governing councils of Protestant and Lutheran churches said, well, err, they're clearly Christian, the theology is sound, and if you accept Lutheran and Calvinist bodies as brothers in Christ, then the Calvinist doctrine of predestination apples, and, errr, you can't fault the logic that nothing is more predestined than the race and ethnicity you get born with and err, whilst their _applicatio_ n of the theology is questionable, you can't throw them out for that or else _**all**_ Calvinist churches are heretical, which means we end up excommunicating all of Holland, Switzerland – where the money is - and half of Germany as well as South Africa… errr….

 **(13)** There is no note 13. The _**Ankh-Morpork Times**_ , quoted here, has a strange fascination with putting peoples' ages in brackets after their names. There appears to be no way of preventing this. Mariella shrugged about it. She was thirteen,yes. No big deal. At least trhey hadn't bitched it this time by making out she was (130). She was happy with that.

 **(14)** Refer to note **(13)** above.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future. Did I mention I am reading Nelson Mandela's biography** _ **"Long Walk To Freedom"**_ **and gathering information on what life was like for the other half of South Africa? Useful background for when I come to write Black Howondaland.**

From Tvtropes – got to remind myself of the context but I thought this was worth noting as an Agatean concept…. All that copied over was "this is denoted as "隠れ巨乳". note literally "hidden big breast"" We shall find out.

The current SA national anthem – an old song and not just in SA, apparently. It is, or has been, a national anthem for quite a few African nations.

Nkosi sikelel' Afrika  
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,  
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,  
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.

Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,  
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,  
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,  
Setjhaba sa South Afrika - South Afrika.

Uit die blou van onse hemel,  
Uit die diepte van ons see,  
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,  
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,

Read more: National Anthem - South Africa Anthem Text Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Lord, bless Africa  
May her spirit rise high up  
Hear thou our prayers  
Lord bless us, Lord bless us.

Lord, bless Africa  
May her spirit rise high up  
Hear thou our prayers  
Lord bless us  
Your family.

 _Chorus_

Descend, O Spirit  
Descend, O Holy Spirit  
Lord bless us  
Your family.

 _It even has Afrikaans lyrics:_

Seën ons Here God, seën Afrika

Laat haar mag tot in die hemel reik  
Hoor ons as ons in gebede vra  
Seën ons, in Afrika  
Kinders van Afrika  
Hou u hand, o Heer, oor Afrika  
Lei ons tot by eenheid en begrip  
Hoor ons as ons U om vrede vra  
Seën ons, in Afrika  
Kinders van Afrika

 _Chorus_

Daal neer, o Gees, Heilige Gees  
Daal neer, o Gees, Heilige Gees  
Kom woon in ons,  
lei ons, o Heilige Gees  
Seën ons Here God, seën Afrika  
Neem dan nou die boosheid van ons weg  
Maak ons van ons sondelewe vry  
Seën ons, in Afrika  
Kinders van Afrika


	3. Beloftes en profesieë

_**Strandpiel 3: Promises and Prophecies.  
**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.**_

 _ **Here it comes. Chapter three. Look for these at least weekly.**_

 _ **The Temple Congregation Hall, Small Gods, Ankh-Morpork.**_

The post-Naming celebration was going just fine. Johanna had pointed out to her aunt and uncle that a lot of people would want to attend the post-ceremony party. Lots more than could be accommodated at a reception room in the embassy, and certainly many more than her home in Spa Lane could take. They had accepted this, and in any case High Priest Hughnon Ridcully had graciously made an assembly room at the Temple of Small Gods available to them. Caterers had been at work all morning, setting up the usual supporting infrastructure and even a makeshift bar. Johanna winced at the cost **.(1)** But some things are inescapable, after a rite of passage like Naming your first-born. She got on with the necessary business of being congratulated by the displaced congregation of the Howondalandian Kirk who had been offered generous help with having somewhere to worship while their own church, sadly damaged in a fire a day or two before, was closed for rebuilding. Practically every White Howondalandian in the City was here. Quite a few hundred people now. Together with invited friends. The Howondalandians were a good cross-selection of society at Home. Some were pointedly avoiding the minister who had presided over the Naming and were keeping a distance. There hadn't been too much open dissent. It wasn't lost on the people present that Ambassador van der Graaf had accepted a black priest as if it were one of those things, and that Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes had extended a hand of friendship to him. Besides, the hard-liners were outnumbered many times over. Quite a few people were discussing or mulling over the sermon, concerning who exactly was entitled to be counted a child of Howondaland. Delivered to a White Howondalandian congregation by a Black Howondalandian priest. That was unprecedented. People had even actually _listened_ , if only in disbelieving shock. Johanna reflected that this had gone into people's heads like a sort of time-bomb on a long fuse. Something they'd remember a long time later, when the fuse finally detonated. Others had been socially courteous, as it was expected that you were respectful to the priest. Even if the priest was black. Others were openly friendly. And the more thoughtful present had noted the presence of quite a few Assassins, including the priest's younger sister – a woman who, while black of skin, most very definitely was _not_ there as a servant. It would not pay to argue.

Johanna smiled. Canon Clement, a dual-qualified Priest and Assassin, had actually used his sermon as a weapon. Impeccably and with style. Words used to inhume belief in apartheid, she speculated. The idea her Volk had, that only white people counted. _Well, there'll be a few people doubting a bit more after today…_

Johanna put all thought of bombs out of her head **(2)** and went back to discussing babies and children with other mothers. Bekki wasn't the only Howondalandian child in town. Others had come here with their parents, and others had actually been born here. She spent a while talking with some of the resident _vrous_ concerning the necessary business of bringing your children up to speak Morporkian outside the home, and Vondalaans within it. It was useful information from more experienced mothers, and she stored a few points for attention later.

It had been a good day. OK, so a band had turned up, largely formed of accordion players, and had started performing some of the old standards like _Wie Se Kind Is Jy, Is Lekker Ou Jan_ and _Outa In Die Langpad._ But you can't get it _all_ right, Johanna had conceded to her sister Mariella. **(3)**

Dancing had been perpetrated **.(4)** Fortunately, the inner circle of family and friends had soon been able to retire to 18 Spa Lane for the smaller, more intimate, family-and-friends gathering. The accordion band were not invited, for instance.

Other things needed to be said and done here, in a more private place outside that provided by a church and only unofficially under the eye of anyone from the Embassy. Uncle Pieter had to be present – he was Family – but here, he wasn't the Ambassador. Diplomats needed time for Family too. And now closest family and friends had gathered in her big room at home, around the guest of honour, who was placidly asleep in her cot. A sort of ceremony was happening, older than any church, outside the scope of any laws, somehow holier than mere religion and more binding than any lawcourt.

Drinks were being poured in the crowded room. People ignored the insistent smell of Goblin. It was accepted on a day like this that the house-goblins, who had fought for Johanna on the Night, had a right to be present. The household's Goblin community, who serviced the clacks, did odd jobs, and who had fought with deadly effect for their employer when she needed them, were ranged around the walls with solemn expectant quiet. Normally they lived their own lives in the sub-cellars when not working. And her full complement of domestic servants were here too. Claude the butler was looking after them. And people were pouring them drinks, rather than the other way about. It was a celebration time. A daughter had been born to the household and it was her naming day. Of course the servants should celebrate with their employer. It was understood.

Johanna's mother, who was standing by the cradle in deep thought, smiled slightly. She remarked that tomorrow, we start interviewing for a nanny. You know, somebody to share the everyday things and help out, if Johanna's so intent on returning to work as soon as she can. Some interesting young women have expressed an interest. She, Johanna's mother, would quite like to see her grand-daughter gets a _good_ one.

There was general agreement. Johanna replied that she had every interest in getting the best possible nanny, _as you know_ , mother, and at least I'll be interviewing alongside yourself and Aunt Friejda. She accepted the "I hope you're not going to be _difficult_ about this, Johanna" faces that her mother and aunt directed to her.

Johanna shook her head slightly and addressed the room.

"Thank you all for being here. I do appreciate this. You are my closest family and friends and I have to say – and appreciate this, I may not say it more than once – I'm fond of you all, and some of you I'd go so far as to say I actually _love_. Even some of you here who are my students at the Guild School."

She nodded towards a group of Assassins' Guild pupils who stood out in their uniforms.

Johanna felt the static crackle of new carpet under her feet. The smell of fresh paint and recent building still lingered in the air, a smell as persistent as that of goblins. There was the wood-and-Quirmian-polish smell of new furniture. If she moved her feet, there was also the creak of new floorboards that were yet to bed in properly. On the Night, Ponder Stibbons had turned into an old-time Wizard, a wizard incensed at the invasion of his high tower by murderous thugs, and had thrown out some potent and indiscriminately applied spells in defence of those he loved. Ponder was still embarrassed about it, although Johanna was quietly sure he'd enjoyed himself, despite the fact he'd blown out a doorway, brought down a ceiling, ripped a hole through both the carpet and the floorboards underneath, and blown a hole in the wall where a perfectly inoffensive window had once been. And, incidentally, reduced several attackers to the traditional smoking pair of boots, ash, and miscellaneous body parts. Mustrum Ridcully had been delighted with him and her father, who had arrived late to the fight but made a big difference, had _really_ taken to his Wizard son-in-law.

The attackers had discovered they were also up against professional Assassins, student Assassins who had learnt their lessons well, angry goblins, a battle-butler sworn to defend his employer and her family with his life, and a fighting soldier who was now in his third pitched battle for his life. And as if _that_ wasn't enough, Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes had turned up. Angry. She smiled slightly. The attackers really hadn't stood a chance. But some serious rebuilding needed to happen afterwards. Some of it was still going on.

"Many of you here fought for me and for my family on the night of Bekki's birth. I thank you all, with all my heart. It is only right you should be here at her Naming. We should, I think, close that chapter of our lives today and open a new one, a better one."

Johanna let her eyes pass to the group of magic-users who were part of the gathering. Again, she wondered exactly what they'd say when their moments came. But you _had_ to have Witches at a Naming. One had been there for the religious part of the ceremony and done what was mandated by the liturgy. Irena had dutifully vowed to seek to protect the child from Evil and to renounce Astfgl **(5)** and all his works.

And, one by one, the invited guests stepped forward to greet the child and speak a few words over the cradle. Some of them even got to hold her in their arms for a while. Everybody else in the room listened solemnly. Even Ponder's surviving aunt, one of the two who'd brought him up in the absence of parents. Impetua Stibbons was elderly now, and frankly a little bit Bursar. In a quiet inobtrusive way, Ponder saw she was cared for and had round-the-clock nursing care so she was never left alone. It was another big expense on the household budget, but Johanna ensured the costs were paid. She and Ponder had also dropped in on the nurses every so often, just so they knew the care they were putting in was appreciated and not only the nephew, but his Assassin wife, were taking an interest **. (6)**

Aunt Impetua was sitting smiling to herself in a vacant sort of way, with one of her nurses in attendance.

Johanna and Ponder stood by the cradle as, one by one, the invited guests each spoke a few words concerning their future relationship with the new child. These included _Op Die Veldt Deze Nackt De Leeu Geshickt,_ head of the resident Goblin clan, who bestowed the first Goblin name on the child, stressing that a longer name would arrive later when she had done something to merit it. Johanna was thoughtful that the name the goblins had chosen to confer on Bekki was Red Life. To the Goblin mind, if the child's mother once had the title of Red Death bestowed upon her, it was right her daughter should balance things by displaying the opposite quality. Johanna reflected that both the Zulus and the Matabeles had named her _The Red Death_ , one of two reasons being that she very definitely had red hair.

 _Red Life?_ Johanna wondered. _This is like a wish from a witch… you don't know what direction it's going to go in till it happens…_ and then she realised there were _four_ Witches in the room and shuddered slightly. They were yet to speak… then she watched peoples' reactions with amusement as her friend Ruth N'kweze stepped forward, with the proud prowling step of a Zulu warrior and a Princess of her people. Aunt Friejda looked as if she were going to faint… Johanna made a point of joining in as Ruth sang a Zulu warrior chant over the cradle, returning the responses. She was aware that her father, her cousin Julian, Canon Clement, and several others, were picking up the idea and returning the chant, as good manners dictated. Ruth had the right: she too had fought here on the Night. With the assegai and shield that normally hung over the fireplace, weapons she was now ritually offering in defence and friendship to Bekki.

"Well said, princess! _Dankie_. Come on, Mustrum." she heard her father say, encouragingly. Mustrum Ridcully stepped forward with an uncharacteristic diffidence.

"Not used to this sort of thing." he almost mumbled. "Years ago, when m'brother's kids were newly hatched…"

"Hold her like _this_ , Mustrum." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes said, helping Bekki settle into his arms. "Be sure to support her head. Good, you have her securely."

"You know, I'm not sure what to say here." he began. "I note you have the traditional three witches here." He acknowledged Eunice Proust, Olga Romanoff and Irena Politek. "Plus one. A spare, so to speak. Back-up." He nodded to the Crown Princess Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of the Kingdom of Lancre. Nottie grinned back.

"I'm the spare, yes. None taken." she agreed, cheerfully.

Ridcully looked down at the child in his arms. Bekki was awake now. She was, her mother noted, now gripping a handy beard in one little fist. Johana found it intriguing as to how tightly even a child a month or so old could grip things, when she wanted to. And how Ridcully stoically accepted this.

"She's a child of the University family too. Through her father. And while Wizards have always been able to marry, they tended, at least till recently, not to do it till later in life. Because they had to retire from the active profession, and generally got wed to women who were also past all that sort of thing. So we don't see too many children, sorry to say. Such Lore as we have needs to be revised. Young Rebecka here is the first of the new line. As Arch-Chancellor, I think it's high time we wrote some new Lore! I say this little girl is a University child. And I'm sayin' if and when she needs it, she can call on us and ask a favour. Not sure what sort of favours she's ever likely to ask, but if I can grant it for her, I _will_. In fact. Got somethin' for her here. Agnetha, m'dear, could you? Thanking you kindly. And if you could, er, persuade her to let go of m'beard for a moment?"

Bekki's grandmother deftly took over the child and somehow disentangled Ridcully's beard from the tiny fist that was tugging at it. Ridcully, visibly relieved, searched in his pockets. Wizards tend to have lots of pockets. It took some time.

"Had this made up, special." He took out a jewellery box and opened it. Johanna and Ponder leaned forward to look. Ridcully took out a silver chain. Something regularly shaped dangled from the end. The pendant was octagonal. It had the University octogram on one side, similar to the membership badge conferred on new Wizards at their graduation. Ridcully flipped it over. The other side was the cloak-and-dagger badge of the Guild of Assassins.

"I remembered Miss Sanderson-Reeves making a very valid point concernin' the child bein' part of the Assassin family by right of birth." Ridcully said. He nodded at Joan Sanderson-Reeves. "Didn't want to step on anyone's toes here. And certainly not Joan's. So the necklace thingy has our octogram on one side, and the cloak and dagger on the other. Tell me if that's not appropriate, and I'll get a new one made."

Joan smiled. "I think that is very thoughtful and appropriate, Arch-Chancellor." she said. "I've got no objections. Nor will the Dark Council."

Ridcully, with great care, hung the pendant round Bekki's neck. It hung low on her, almost to her knees. He intoned a few words in a low purposeful voice.

"You're right, lad." he said to Ponder, who looked suddenly alert. "There's magic on this. If she wears this and she's ever in bother, I will _know_. Then I can assist. There's also protection in there. If she takes after her dear mother, she's going to need it."

Johanna thanked him for the gift, then prudently said it was perhaps best returned to its box, until she was older. What might happen if a baby used a magical amulet as a teething ring was something she was not certain about. She guessed it might have consequences. She wasn't sure what sort of consequences, and wasn't keen to experiment.

"Jolly good, then." Ridcully said. He stepped back. "Well, that's _my_ piece said. Who's up next?"

Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes stepped forward. He shook his head. Agnetha shook her head too.

"Not yet, Mustrum. Listen to me. We're this child's grandparents. But justnow, when business is done here, we have to get Home to Howondaland."

"Justnow **(7),** _ja_." Agnetha agreed.

"We cennot be here more than for a couple of weeks of eny year. I have a _plaas_ to run. Right now, my oldest son, Johanna's brother, end my son-in-law, are managing the _plaas_. It's in good hands. But a man must walk his own lend, you hear me?"

Johanna tried not to look relieved that her parents were thinking of leaving. She watched them look over to where Aunt Impetua Stibbons was navigating a world of her own, possibly a long way away from this one. Then back to Ridcully.

"Ponder's parents are long gone. He hes only the one living relative."

Aunt Impetua appeared to be having a spirited conversation with somebody she referred to as Great-Uncle Stavely. Her nurse squeezed her hand reasuringly as she chatted into empty air, pausing now and again to listen for an answer.

Barbarossa looked away and went on. "This creates a gep. _Vorbei,_ a child needs _two_ sets of grandparents! End we must be several thousand miles away, elthough we intend to return es often as we can."

Johanna tried not to let the wince show.

"Well, Barbarossa, old boy, although I agree with you, it _does_ seem to be a done deal that there's only yourself and Agnetha…"

Barbarossa clapped his friend on the shoulder.

"Mustrum. When we first met et Johanna's wedding. You said it yourself. Thet you think of Ponder es a father thinks of a son, end thet you were the nearest end the closest thing to the father of the groom."

Ponder Stibbons jerked up in sudden and deep surprise. Johanna realised that Ridcully had probably never said this to him. Before now. It figured.

Barbarossa let the implications of this sink in, then he clapped Ridcully's shoulder again.

"Mustrum, if you think of Ponder es a son, then whet does thet make you to his daughter?"

Ridcully shook his head, then grinned slowly. Barbarossa pressed his advantage. "Mustrum, a child needs _two_ grendfathers. And you will be closest to the girl es she grows."

"Well." Mustrum Ridcully said, quietly. "looks like you've got me on the hook there, Barbarossa. Seems like I'm now, what do you people call it, an _oupa_? That's if Johanna agrees, of course, And the lad."

"You will be a very good _oupa_." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes said, firmly. "You have the right. End I can think of none finer."

Barbarossa laughed. "Now all we need to do is to decide who the second grendmother is to be!"

There was a pause.

"Why on Disc is everybody suddenly looking at _me_?" Joan Sanderson-Reeves said, crossly.

And later, the witches had their say. It was traditional. Johanna and Ponder took some _very_ deep breaths as the other magic users in the room stepped forwards and gathered around the cradle. Mrs Proust was the City Witch. It was agreed she had a right to attend Namings in the City. And, Ponder knew, she tended to be selective, and turn up only to the ones that promised to be _interesting_. Otherwise she'd be doing nothing else but – a lot of children were born in the city every year. And if a Witch turned up at your doorstep and requested admission to your child's Naming – then you let her in. On the grounds that at least this way, you actually got to _hear_ the blessing she bestowed on your newborn. And once in, you showed her full unstinting hospitality.

Ponder accepted that she'd shown up with Irena, Olga and Nottie, all of whom had been present on the Night of Bekki's birth and who had assisted with getting Johanna's parents here. They had the right too. Granted, they'd also each brought their flight Feegle, the indispensable navigator to the Pegasus Witch. The three Feegle were among the Goblins, appreciating a drinkie and a social afternoon off work, aye.

Olga Romanoff went first.

"You'll travel far." She said. "You will have a foot in two continents. You will never be the greatest in what you will do. But you'll still make an impact. People will talk about you. You will take wit – _your chosen career_ – to a place where it's needed. And you'll make peace. You'll be _good_ at that. I can see a few moments coming up where you'll need to. In this home, to begin with. And did I mention you're going to be good at languages too? You're going to need it, _devyuschka_."

Olga stepped away.

Your go, Irena." she said.

Irena Politek smiled slightly.

"You know, you're going to get on with people." she said. "Something your mother still finds difficult. You've got curiosity. You'll use it, too. I'm just betting you'll be good with animals. And you'll be pretty bright. You're going to go far, kid. And since I'm your Godsmother, I'm going to show you how to make the most of what you've been given. And will be given. There are wings in your future."

And then the hideous-looking city witch stepped forward. She cackled, just for the look of the thing, and waited till the room had her attention.

"This one's a peacemaker, alright." she said. "But some people are going to think that makes her a doormat. And they can walk all over her. _Then_ they'll discover whose daughter she is. And there's a fight or two in her future. No point in hiding that. She won't want to fight but if she has to – she will do. There's a River. There's a bright sun shining but it's still dark on both sides. This little girl is going to bring a bit of good wholesome light there. The Dark won't like that at all. But it ain't going to blow the candle out."

Mrs Proust beamed amiably at the room.

"She's got a good future. Some tricky moments, but she'll do alright. Nottie? Any thoughts, love?"

The Crown Princess Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of the Kingdom of Lancre who was also a Witch, laid a hand on the cradle. She paused before speaking.

"I'm the fourth witch here and according to the stories, that's one too many. I'm happy to leave the traditional three wishes to Mrs Proust and Olga and Irena. I'll just say when - _if_ \- Bekki wants to try out flying, she can hitch a lift on the back of my Pegasus any time she wants and I'll be happy to take her up. Who knows, she'll get airborne all by herself. It's a possibility."

And so the afternoon finished. Johanna and Ponder tried to make sense, later, of the witches' words. They gloomily agreed that magic, and Witchcraft, might be a possibility for their daughter. And that it was best to let the rest work itself out. Just – wait and see.

* * *

 **(1)** She was comforted somewhat when her cousin Julian later said to her "it's all dealt with. Remember I got access to the family bank account here? It's on my father. Make sure I get all the bills? Thanks." Johanna had still wondered what sort of favour Uncle Charles was likely to want in return. But that was a discomforting thought to be dealt with later. When the other shoe dropped.

 **(2)** Hard, as it was one of her professional competences at the Guild of Assassins. Exothermic Alchemy was one of the lessons she taught. She was gratified that her younger sister Mariella and her best friend Rivka ben-Devorah were students who had shown exceptional talent in Deployment of Incendiaries, and in necessary related skills such as making the resulting fire look like a regrettable accident. They would both get starred A's that term.

 **(3)** Research threw up a South African group, somewhat popular, formed of older musicians, called the Klipwerf Boerorkes, or just the Klipwerf Orkes. It's….. well, it's the sort of music Arnold Rimmer would have adored. Imagine four comfortably shaped middle aged people, three men and a woman, doing largely keyboard and accordion-based arrangements of old Afrikaaner tunes. What saves it from being corny beyond belief is the obvious joy they get out of doing it. The video for _Wie Se Kind Is Jy_ is in its way wonderful – real joy and pleasure, a catchy tune, and some lively dancing.

 **(4).** Yes. The leeuloop. Think of it as a variation on a theme of line-dancing, with all that implies.

 **(5)** The Liturgy for a Naming in the Church of Blind Io actually said at this point :

 _ **President, to the Godsparent:**_ do you renounce ( Astfgl *) and all his works and do you renounce the corruption and deceit of evil?

 _ **Godsparent:**_ I so reject and renounce, and I will seek to faithfully guide this child in all the ways _of (his/her, delete as appropriate)_ life under the All-Seeing Eyes of Blind Io.

 _Or insert here the name of the current Lord of Hell as revealed to us through the Intercession of the Great God_

 **(6)** Just so everybody was aware where they stood on the matter of _the best possible care_. So that no _little misunderstandings_ happened. As Johanna pointed out, "We do not want _those_ , do we? End my husband is a diffident man who would feel awkward ebout raising complaint or objection. I em more _direct_ than that." She did add that she was also capable of rewarding good service with bonuses and little thank-you tokens of appreciation every so often. Aunt Impetua got some _very_ good care as a result.

 **(7)** That great South African expression of relative and elastic time. If a Saffie says they're thinking of doing something _justnow_ , it can mean in five minutes time, in an hour's time, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or possibly never. If pressed or made aware of the urgency of something, a Saffie might switch from _justnow_ to _na-now_ , which means they're actually on the case.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future. Did I mention I am reading Nelson Mandela's biography** _ **"Long Walk To Freedom"**_ **and gathering information on what life was like for the other half of South Africa? Useful background for when I come to write Black Howondaland.**

 **There is Homage to Peter Tinniswood's bittersweet and somewhat surreal novels of life in northern England, the Brandon Family saga, where Great-Uncle Stavely is a somewhat confused elderly relative. Tinniswood is reccomended for the way he conflates the gritty everyday realism of Northern English working-class life with some truly surreal comedy touches. The books are deliberately vague as to whether the setting is Yorkshire or Lancashire, although the TV adaptation _I Didn't Know You Cared_ sets the scene very definitively in Yorkshire. **

**Deleted Segment: **

_**I wondered why I was getting nowhere with this until I realised I was cuddling and over-working what should only be incidental detail. Rather than have everybody present at the family Naming party stepping forward and saying their piece – a series of cameos – I should focus on "edited highlights" and stick with what is essential to the story. But on the other hand, I did write quite a few peoples' vows and promises and it seems a shame to lose them. So here it is as a bonus piece.**_

 _Dina Fourie, Student Assassin, Tump House:_ "Err.. I thank Doctor Smith-Rhodes for inviting me here to be present to see her beautiful baby. And I do thank her for her kindness in inviting me because I'm from Piemberg and she thought that made a difference, even though I'm not close family or even Family at all… errr. Well, if you need a babysitter, _Mevrou Doktor,_ I'd really love to be asked and I swear I'll never let you down. And I'd never let Rebecka down. Err.."

 _Miss Alice Band, licenced Assassin and Official Godsmother (#1): "_ Well, it's a honour to have been asked. Anyone who knows me will know I'm not mad keen on the idea of having children myself. It's something I'd quite like to avoid, in fact. But that doesn't mean I'm against the idea of _other people_ having them. And after everything else that's happened over the last few months, just being here is something to be thankful for. I'm pleased. Rebecka. I want to be here for you as you grow up. I owe it to your mother, who is one of my closest friends. I might sometimes shout at you for the good of your soul, and I'd be surprised if I don't. I've shouted at your mother sometimes, and that doesn't mean I don't love her. So what can I say? I'll be there when you need me and if there's anything I can teach you that you might find useful, I will do. Whether you come to the School or not. And that's a promise."

 _Miss Rivka ben-Devorah Bechstein, Student, Black Widow House: "_ Well, kid, in a roundabout sort of way you got my name. That's got to mean something. I'm a Rivka, you're a Rebecca. I think we're going to get on. _Gevalt_ , if Johanna and Ponder think I'm _not_ going to be a part of your life after Naming you after me, they've got another think coming. They won't get rid of me that easily. You're an oldest daughter. But that doesn't mean you can't have a big sister. You've got me. If you want me. I kind of fought for you the night you were born. I'll fight for you again if it needs me to."

 _Mariella Smith-Rhodes_ , _Student, Black Widow House, and Aunt:_

"You're not my first niece. You won't be my last, either. But everything Rivka said, and then some. I fought for you too, and the people who would have killed you and your mother nearly killed me. Twice. It wasn't for want of their trying. If it comes to having to fight for you again, I'll be there. And maybe you'll be old enough to fight alongside me. Looking at people like your mother, and Miss Band, and Madame Emmanuelle, and Miss N'Kweze, and Miss Sanderson-Reeves, you'll _certainly_ be taught how to fight. It's inevitable, so you'd better learn to live with it. And if that's what happens, I'll be there. You'll always have an aunt, though. Lots of aunts. Being part of this Family isn't _all_ bad news."

 _Captain Julian Smith-Rhodes, official Godsfather:_

"Err. Sorry, I haven't had much practice in holding babies. She _is_ the right way up, Johanna? Thanks. Well, she's a Smith-Rhodes. People say that's a life sentence. With no hope of parole. Welcome to the Family, Bekki. You know, fighting for you on the night and doing what we could to make sure you arrived in the world is only half the story, I think. Not even half. You can't just walk away and say "Well, that's it, lovely daughter, job done, see you later, and good luck." It's starting to look as if we're in for a long trek and it's going to last the rest of your life. Or my life. Or _somebody's_ life. And, well, there are two halves to the Smith-Rhodes family. Because my side of the family took a different direction, we prefer to speak Morporkian. This side prefers to speak Vondalaans. All down to a disagreement between the surviving sons of Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes after the War of Independence. I know my father and Uncle Andreas believe the two branches of the Family should come closer again. And having fought for my life alongside Johanna – _twice_ – I have a feeling we've drawn closer still. I hope as Bekki grows up, she'll feel at home whichever side of the Family she's with. Maybe helping that along is a godsfather's job, and I'm pleased to do it."

 _The Comptesse Emmanuelle de Lapoignard, licenced Assassin:_

" _Eh bien._ May this child grow up to be happy, healthy, and joyous. May she learn to laugh and appreciate a good joke. She will ever be a friend who may call upon me in need. I suppose I can teach her to gamble responsibly and to use a sword. And what she needs to know about men, in due course. Eve, _cherie,_ is there more of that most agreeable red wine? _Merci beaucoup_."

 _His Excellency Pieter van der Graaf, Ambassador of the Republic of Rimwards Howondaland to Ankh-Morpork:_

"I'm here as a Family member and not in any official capacity. All the official things have been done, and my signature is barely dry on the birth certificate. What can I say as her great-uncle? I rather suspect this child is destined for an eventful life. Members of the Smith-Rhodes family do rather tend to have eventful lives which are full of incident, after all. But I'm sure all the people gathered here – including, I hope, myself - have skills and talents they will willingly pass on, which will prepare her for that life. I have every confidence she will thrive on her chosen road in life. And every hope she grows up calling me Uncle. I'd be disappointed if she didn't."

 _Lady Friejda van der Graaf, his wife:_

"I'm so glad. I knew Johanna would have beautiful children when she _finally_ settled down and married a good man. I hope Rebecka comes to Howondaland and sees her other country. When Pieter retires from the Diplomatic Service and we return there, she will be so welcome."

 _The Crown Princess Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of the Kingdom of Lancre, Witch:_

"I'm the fourth witch here and according to the stories, that's one too many. I'll leave the traditional three wishes to Mrs Proust and Olga and Irena. I'll just say when - _if_ \- Bekki wants to try out flying, she can hitch a lift on the back of my Pegasus any time she wants and I'll be happy to take her up. Who knows, she'll get airborne all by herself. It's a possibility."

 _Miss Ruth N'Kweze, Paramount Crown Princess of the Zulu Empire and licenced Assassin:_

The majority of people in the room were White Howondalandian. Today Ruth was dressed in Central Continent style, in her best formal Assassin black; one of only two black-skinned people present who were, very emphatically, not servants. The majority of people in the room were White Howondalandian. Almost all of whom knew Ruth and were happy at her presence here. Johanna smiled slightly as Ruth took down the shield and assegai from above the fireplace. Aunt Friejda gave a little shriek of supressed terror. Uncle Pieter took her arm reassuringly and whispered something. Johanna noted her father beaming almost approvingly. " _This_ should be good!" she heard him say, in what he tended to think of as a discreet whisper. Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes and discreet subtlety were not two concepts that went together, as a rule.

People made way as Ruth stalked towards the cradle. She smiled at Aunt Friejda.

Then she raised shield and spear, and ululated a cry in the Zulu language, breaking into song.

" _Aiko biyaye!"_

At its end, she made the warrior salute to the child in the cradle.

"Lady Friejda, I carried this shield and spear in the defence of this home some weeks ago." Ruth said. "Of my own free will I fought for this family. I fought for the woman who offered hospitality to me. I fought for Johanna. I was _glad_ to fight for her. I fought for her daughter. My song was to welcome Bekki to the world, to express gladness at her birth, and to offer her my spear and my right arm if she needs me to fight for her. I hope this child grows, in whatever way is most fitting, into a warrior like her mother. Like her mother, she will have my shield and my spear to call on. But as with her mother, saving only one circumstance. I agreed with Johanna a long time ago we were never going to fight. Excepting one situation and one situation only. If your people cross into my country to fight and we end up on opposite sides – well, then, we _fight_. Till then, we are friends.

"I hope that one day, if Bekki stands on the bank of a certain River and looks to the other bank, and has no ill-will to my people, she can cross over and we can welcome her as a friend. Her mother can never do that. Perhaps her daughter might. And on that day, I would welcome her. And no, Ambassador van der Graaf, I am not speaking in an official capacity either. My people would consider that a dangerous ideal to express openly."

Pieter van der Graaf smiled. "I hear you, Your Royal Highness." he said. Ruth nodded and returned the weapons to the wall.

Op Die Veldt Deze Nacht Die Leeu Geschickt, head of the household's Goblin community, stepped forward next. He grinned up at everyone.

"The new cub-human is born to Red Fox-Hair, Liberator of Goblins." he said. "Birth of new cub is great occasion to all peoples. In this room I see Girl-Prickly-As-Desert-Cactus. I see Red-Vixen-Cub-Wielder-Of-Bloody-Spear. I see also Clever-As-Fox-Who-fought-For-Goblins and the lady Black-Panther-With-Stabbing-Spear. And the dangerous lady Black-Rose-With-Two-Thorns, Men-Who-Seek-To-Pick-This-Rose-Will-Bleed. **(8)** Goblin people only give long name to great humans who merit it. But all should have name at birth. No name is no life. We have talked. Zulu people gave Red Fox-Hair, Liberator of Goblins, name of Red Death. Her cub is newborn and life is in her, _great_ life. We see future dimly. If her dam is Red Death, the cub is Red Life. When she do things to be worthy of it, we add extra name. The friendship of my clan be with her. We fight for her, as we fight for her mother."

 _Olga Romanoff, Pegasus Service Pilot, City Watch Air Policewoman, and most crucially here, Witch:_

 _Irena Politek, Official Godsmother(#2), Pegasus Service Pilot, City Watch Air Policewoman, and most crucially here, Witch:_

 _Mrs Eunice Proust, City Witch:_

 _Mustrum Ridcully, Arch-Chancellor of Unseen University and a man who will receive another vital position with regard to the upbringing of the child:_

* * *

 _(8) Little game – match the Goblin name to the person._


	4. Geregtigheid

_**Strandpiel 4: G**_ _ **eregtigheid - Justice**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.**_

 _ **For those who wanted some of the immediate aftermath of Hyperemesis Gravidarum. Written at a time when I have a painful problem with teeth, am on heavy duty painkillers and antibiotics because my bloody dentition is betraying me (upper jaw problem that may require a dental hospital stay, bleeding hooray) and I need to do something to take my mind off it. Hoping this tale has coherence.**_

 _ **Scrolling forwards to a time a little more than eight years after the Naming. Ankh-Morpork, one autumn.**_

"I am so sorry, Mistress Johanna."

Johanna patted the hand of her childrens' nanny.

"You weren't to know. Annaliese. Things like this happen in this city. And happen often. You cannot shield children from them forever. Myself, I wouldn't even try."

She smiled slightly.

"No blame attaches to you. None at all. Now let's go over this again, before I talk to the girls about today?"

It really was one of those things. Johanna was currently pregnant again with what she was determined would be her last child. A son would be nice. But given the sideways looks that Olga and Irena had given each other when she'd mentioned this to the two witches, she suspected it was going to be a third daughter. Witches _knew_. Even witches who were scrupulously respecting her desire not to be told in advance.

Annaliese had taken the two girls for a walk in Hide Park to give them fresh air and exercise and a chance to play in the open air. Bekki and Famke had appreciated this, and they'd even taken the dogs for a long walk. Johanna, reasoning that a nanny and two children escorted by dogs like Klipdrift and Rooibuis would be _extremely_ safe, had got on with other things.

And the day in the park had been all it should have been. Until Annaliese had led the party out onto the street at the Gibbet.

And they'd seen the body hanging from the gallows. Justice had evidently happened here, and the corpse left to swing for a measured length of time as a thing for passers-by to observe and take a lesson from. Who it had been and what they'd done were immaterial. It was the effect it had had on the girls. Annaliese, a conscientious and serious young woman, was blaming herself. She had brought the matter to her employer and Johanna was now telling her there was nothing to reproach herself for. These things, after all, happened. And in Ankh-Morpork, they happened a lot. Best the girls knew young, and any difficult questions could be answered as best as a parent could. No point in wrapping them in cotton wool or putting blinkers on.

 _I'll talk to the girls_ , Johanna decided. _Get Ponder involved too. But best find out from Annaliese first._

"Rebecka was very distressed." Annaliese said. "It required much comforting. She said some most strange things. But Famke, Mistress. Famke was asking things like, does it _hurt_ to be hanged? How long does it take to die? Things you do not expect a girl of nearly five to be interested in."

Johanna felt concern. Bekki didn't scare easily and it took a lot to shake her usually sunny disposition. And Famke… Johanna winced. She was watching her younger daughter intently. In more respects than usual for an adventurous outgoing five-year-old, Famke needed close observation. Her interests were different to those of her older sister, for one thing. It took some seriously hands-on parenting with that one.

Johanna reached down and petted Klipdrift, who was sprawled at her feet and panting. The thing about a dog like Klipdrift was that he didn't need much reaching down. You didn't need to stretch a hand very far. Not very far at all.

"What sort of strange things was Bekki saying, Annaliese?"

Annaliese shuffled nervously.

"That she remembered not one but _four_ bodies hanging from ropes, mistress."

Johanna's head jerked up as she made the association. Memories surfaced and she felt an icy flush of guilt, like being doused with cold water. _So it wasn't over yet, even now…_

"Bring the children to me, Annaliese? And see if the Professor is available. Tell him I have said he is to make time for his daughters. Thank you."

A little later, the family were gathered together. Annaliese and Claude the butler stood discreetly back. Bekki, approaching nine years old, ran forward to greet the dogs. Klipdrift rumbled to his feet and he and his sister Rooibuis padded to meet her. Bekki was briefly swamped by two big affectionate dogs. One of the two family cats turned a languid eye towards her, then resumed her lazy doze on the big armchair.

"Famke?" Johanna said, watching her other daughter. "Remember what I said about the weapons? _Not_ to be touched unless I say so, please. And then only under supervision. Thank you."

Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons reluctantly turned away from the exciting display on the wall, and withdrew the fingers that had been reaching out to the hilt of a Brindisian longsword.

"Besides, that one's far too heavy for you." Johanna said, practically. "You'd never be able to lift it. Wait till you see Auntie Emmie next, and she'll help you choose one you can practice with. And that is _only_ if a responsible adult is there to supervise."

Johana sighed. Bekki's attitude to the weapons – and 18 Spa Lane had them in profusion – was a generally disinterested shrug and a tendency to view them as furniture. Just things Mummy hung up on the walls for decoration. Famke was drawn to them. It took close supervision. At least Famke was of an age now to start doing basic drills and instructions. It would burn off her energies and sate her curiosity, Johanna hoped. And teach her, in the right way, that weapons are dangerous.

Ponder Stibbons watched with fatherly concern. He knew Johanna had the thing with Famke and potentially lethal weaponry with lots of sharp edges under control. At least, he hoped so. The day he'd walked into the living room to see his younger daughter, then about three, had taken a sword from the wall and was making ineffectual swings with a weapon she was finding hard to even lift… that had been _unsettling_. Claude the butler had deftly disarmed her, with firm deference, accepting that she wanted to play at being Mummy and to do what Mummy does, but advising her that it might not be a very good idea at this time, perhaps, and Madam might have opinions to express?

Meanwhile, the only two things on the wall that really interested Bekki were his Wizard's staff and the broomstick. The broom was now securely padlocked in place and Ponder had taken care to introduce Bekki to the Staff. It suffered her touch and didn't do any of the usual things a wizard's staff did to people who touched it without permission **.(1)** But he'd made sure it was inert for her and she had no access to the magic **.(2)** You could never be too careful.

Johanna and Ponder made room for the girls to sit between them. He allowed Famke to settle in his lap, and then asked, in as unloaded a way as he could manage, how their day at the Park had been.

"It was amazing, Daddy! We got to see this dead man on a rope!" said Famke, bouncing with enthusiasm. Ponder winced. His daughters were growing up in Ankh-Morpork. Sometimes you got things like this. The city tended to make people think like this.

"It was really nice until we saw the dead man, mummy." Bekki said, shuddering. Johanna hugged her.

"And how did that make you feel, Bekki?" her mother asked, probing gently.

Bekki snuggled closer and considered this for a long moment.

"It was horrible, mummy." she said. "I know Annaliese said it was necessary and bad things happen to bad people who do bad things. So that man must have done _something_ bad. Maybe hurt somebody badly. So I suppose he deserved it…"

Bekki let her voice tail off into uncertainty. Johanna hugged her reassuringly.

"But just to leave him hanging there. Is that _right,_ mummy?"

Johanna thought about the issue. Lord Vetinari must have been annoyed. Or wanted to make an example. So that people saw and took note. The bodies were usually tided away immediately afterwards, weren't they? She made soothing noises of the sort that conveyed that they aren't left there forever, Bekki. Even bad men have families and people who loved them. They're allowed to take the body down and give them some sort of decent burial. After a while. _And so a rotting corpse isn't left there to stink. Public health hazard. Vetinari accepts that we've moved on from the really old days. At least, a little._

She looked over to where Famke was asking excited questions about does it hurt, and how long does it take to die? Annaliese wouldn't answer, she said they weren't nice things for a little girl to ask, but I want to _know_ , Daddy!

Johanna assessed her younger daughter. She didn't _think_ it was anything alarming. Famke was kind to animals, for one thing. She'd screamed at a boy who was throwing stones at a cat, lost her temper, and made to chase him. A boy twice her size and several years older had turned and fled rather than confront her. _Then again, the cat involved was Pyn. Who is not a cat you wish to have made angry with you._

No, none of the usual early indicators of any sort of sociopathy were there. Famke didn't torment animals or have an unhealthy interest in lighting fires, for instance **.(3)** In her case, it was probably an early indicator of the sort of character traits the Guild of Assassins took an interest in. _There, I've said it. She is fascinated with weapons and is now displaying a precocious but intellectual interest in the processes of death. If my second daughter does not take a place at the School in a few years time, I would be surprised._

She left Ponder explaining, as best he could, about what death was, how it was necessary to balance out life, that everybody born would eventually die, and for instance, when you were very tiny, we had two older dogs who'd lived full happy lives, but came to their ends. They were called Kaffee and Crème, and everyone was sad when they died. Today we've got Klipdrift and Roobuis and they're big happy healthy dogs. Maybe when the day comes for them, and it will, there'll be new dogs to replace them. But not for many years yet. And, Ponder said, there's also Death. Errrm.

"It still makes me sad to think about Kaffee and Crème, mummy." Bekki said. "I love Rooibuis and Klipdrift, but when I'm grown up, I think I'd like a ridgeback. Of my own."

"Never try to replace them." Johanna said. "It doesn't work that way. New dogs make a new place for themselves. A different place. That's why I chose boerboels as the new dogs. Your Auntie Mariella suggested it. She was right."

They contemplated the enormous mastiffs together. Boerboels could never be called _attractive_ dogs. They were bulky where Kaffee and Crème had been sleek. Their faces could be kindly described as having character **(4).** But they were hugely amiable and good-natured and everybody in the household loved them. Johanna had no doubt that they'd show their _other_ side if the household were to come under attack. The postman on the Spa Lane walk was wary, for instance. And not just of the dogs.

"So what else happened today?" Johanna prompted her daughter. Bekki took her time in answering. Johanna sensed her daughter felt troubled.

"Mummy, when I saw that poor man hanging there. I got a memory. But I'm not sure if it was a memory or not. I mean, mummy, to remember something, it actually has to have _happened_ , hasn't it? Or else it isn't a memory. But I remembered not _one_ man hanging up there. But _four,_ all in a row. And all the people around me, there were lots of people, were happy and pleased to see them hanging. You were there, and _ouma_ and _oupa,_ and Auntie Mariella, and others."

Johanna tried not to sit up suddenly straight.

"But I don't remember being in a place like that. Or I'd _remember_." Bekki said, perplexed. "It must have been a dream or something. Maybe it came back, mummy, when I saw the hanged man."

Johanna let the icy flood of guilt wash over her. She remembered a time, nearly nine years before…

 _.. The robbery of the express train between Quirm and Ankh-Morpork._

 _Assault and robbery with aggravated violence of one hundred and twelve passengers._

 _The murder of nine goblins who were part of the train crew._

 _The murder of a Watch constable assigned to the Railway Police in the course of his duties._

 _The attempted murder of a second constable of the Railway Watch._

The new gallows had been erected in Sator Square. Vetinari had sanctioned the cost of this very public hanging and all the infrastructure that went with it, like a viewing podium for invited dignitaries, as some executions needed to be done _very_ publicly. The Watch were out in force, reinforced by more than the usual number of armed prison officers from the Tanty. And the square was packed as far back as the Maul. There was a carnival air of expectation. Dibblers were out in force servicing the crowd.

 _The murder of Thief, Stephen "Titch" Gibbet. (26) Unlawful disposal of his body._

 _Armed robbery of Trawler's Alchemickal Suppliers. Theft of chemicals and sundries which is compounded by these substances being illegal to hold without a licence to practice Alchemy._

 _The murder of wizard Anthony Aloysius Theopracticus (22)._

The opening show, the support act, was the despatching of the surviving henchmen, those of the gang recruited to assault Eighteen Spa Lane. Twenty-six thugs had been recruited on the promise of fifty dollars a head, pick of valuables, and freedom to do as they liked with any women they captured before killing them too. In reality, they were there as arrow-fodder, meat-shields, to soak up the damage to be sustained in attacking a hose full of Assassins and other dangerous people. Only twelve had lived in the end, and then only to be hanged today. The wounded men had very carefully been nurtured back to health so that Vetinari could refuse clemency or commutation of sentence. They had, after all, voluntarily and knowingly associated sentence with men who had attempted to assassinate Vetinari himself. And then agreed to attack, murder and rape. Nobody had forced them at any point. Therefore they would all hang.

The henchmen were marshalled to the scaffold in groups of four. The crowd watched, intent. This was a warm-up to the main event…

From the viewing platform set up for dignitaries, Johanna Smith-Rhodes watched, with an expression of detached disinterest. She recognised one of the woebegone individuals on the scaffold. It was the man who'd been stabbed in the thigh by a goblin armed with a stolen kitchen knife. Johanna, chasing the ringleader, had lashed his arm with her whip to disarm him of his knife. Apart from the final showdown on the roof, it had been pretty much the only actual fighting she'd done in defence of her own home and family. Other people, many of whom were gathered around her here to witness the final act of the drama, had done the defending for her. She felt glad and thankful she had such family and friends.

"I told you that you would hang." she remarked in his general direction, as Mr Trooper the Civic Hangman hooded him and said a few final words, before adjusting the set of the noose. The usual sort of people stood back on the scaffold, as Mr Trooper went from man to man. The priest who was there for the ritual last words. Doctor Mossy Lawn, there to pronounce death and ensure the bodies taken away were really cadavers. Watchmen at strategic points on the fringes. Sam Vimes himself, standing alongside Peter Bellamy, the Deputy Governor of the Tanty Prison. Johanna appreciated there were formalities. The _habeus corpus_ business, literally so in this case. Prisoners in Tanty custody released into the custody of the Watch for one last escorted journey across the City. Then four bodies released back into the custody of the Tanty for disposal. It created paperwork, a head-count that had to tally at all stages. And with a hanging like this, it _had_ to be Sam Vimes and Peter Bellamy, the men at the top, dealing with the issues. Nobody else could be present.

"I wonder if monsieur Trooper sat up all night preparing his _bons blagues_ for sixteen men, _chere amie_?"

Emmanuelle de Lapoignard had moved next to Johanna on the viewing podium. She too had been a target for the gang and had been there on the last night. She was an invited person here, one with a special interest in seeing justice served. Johanna smiled at her old friend.

"After all, he prides himself on a bespoke personal service to his clients. In that he is not unlike an Assassin."

Johanna agreed. They watched the twelve lesser criminals leave the world, in orderly batches of four. The crowd cheered every drop. But they too were awaiting the main performance.

"How are you finding it, _ma petite_?" Emmanuelle asked, a housemistress taking care of a pupil. Mariella Smith-Rhodes, her wounded leg pretty much healed by now and standing unassisted, looked across to her teacher. She shrugged. Johanna suspected this was a show of blasé unconcern to hide a lot of queasiness underneath. Teenage bravado.

"Distasteful. But I suppose it has to be done." Mariella said. "And it draws a line under the whole business."

" _Ja."_ agreed her father. " _Trek ons die lyn_ , Mariella. The words have many meanings. And you drew your line on the night. When that _bliksem_ stepped over it, you stabbed him with a spear. You held your ground and you stood your man. You gave him pain and hurt. And I am _proud_ of you, my daughter!"

Barbarossa and Agnetha, their parents, were here too. _Still_ here, nearly three months further on.

"This is justice." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes said. " _G_ _eregtigheid_. It is right that we should be here to see it done. Distasteful, ja. _Maar_ , _G_ _eregtigheid_ _ **."**_

The litany continued in Johanna's head.

 _Setting explosive devices with the intent to damage property, to kill and injure._

 _An attempt on the life, via explosive device, of Sergeant Precious Jolson of the City Watch. The attempted destruction by explosive device of premises belonging to her father, Mr Alowayo "All" Jolson, restaurateur._

 _Sending explosive devices through the post, contravening City law and Post Office Regulations 27(d) (i) to 31 (j) (vii) inclusive._

 _An attempt by explosive device on the life of miss Heidi van Kruger, Magersfontein, R.H., currently resident in Ankh-Morpork and Acting Deputy Director of the Ankh-Morpork City Zoo. To be concurrently prosecuted under Rimwards Howondalandian criminal law._

 _Acts of arson at the said City Zoo occasioned by incendiary Devices._

 _An attempt by explosive device on the life of Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes, Piemberg, R.H., currently resident in Ankh-Morpork, tutor at the Assassins' Guild School and Director of the Ankh-Morpork City Zoo. To be concurrently prosecuted under Rimwards Howondalandian criminal law._

Johanna heard her father humming the old song. Heidi van Kruger joined in, no doubt seeing the irony and relevance.

 _En veg ons nie sal ons verdwyn,  
By Magersfontein, by Magersfontein, by Magersfontein,  
Trek ons die lyn! _

" _Ja._ You had your Magersfontein. In your own living room." Agnetha said. Magersfontein had been a turning-point battle, or rather a series of battles, in the War of Independence. It was also Heidi's home town. Johanna was pretty sure Heidi was a descendant of one of the great Generals. It explained a lot about her.

"And had you not fought, you would have _died_. You drew your line, and you defended it. Now we are here to see the last act." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes said, with grim satisfaction.

Emmanuelle and Davinia Bellamy looked puzzled. Johanna realised not everybody here spoke Vondalaans, and quickly translated a precis for them.

"Draw a line, hold that line, stand your ground, pick your man, get him before he gets you. Important ideas in my country." Johanna explained. Mariella and Cousin Julian nodded in agreement. Mariella found herself humming lines from a song. Cousin Julian joined in.

" _Al breek die hel hier agter ons los,  
En al stort die hemel neer!  
Hou jou lyn en staan jou man.."_

"Of course, the trick is when all Hell breaks loose and the heavens fall, you have to make sure it's all coming down on the other man." Julian Smith-Rhodes said, drily. "Which makes it a little easier to hold your line and pick your man, if he's a bit dizzy from hell breaking loose and the skies falling on his head."

 _An attack on the Embassy of The Republic of Rimwards Howondaland, resulting in the deaths of the following named Embassy staff (….) an assassination attempt on the life of his Excellency Pieter van der Graaf, Ambassador, resulting in wounding, the wounding of the following named personnel (…), and an attempt on the life of Captain Julian Smith-Rhodes, military attaché. To be concurrently prosecuted to the fullest extent of Rimwards Howondalandian criminal law._

 _An attempt to assassinate Havelock Vetinari, Lord Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, by means of explosive device. For consequent criminal damage at the Patrician's Palace occasioned by the detonation of said Device._

 _For two attempts on the life of Miss Mariella Smith-Rhodes, of Piemberg, R.H., student at the Assassins' Guild School. For the wounding and grievous bodily harm inflicted on Miss Smith-Rhodes. To be concurrently prosecuted to the fullest extent of Rimwards Howondalandian criminal law. The Court notes that this also became subject to retributory contract by the Guild of Assassins._

And then the four principal players were marched onto the scaffold under heavy Watch escort. Vetinari was taking no chances here. Nor was Sam Vimes. Peter Bellamy too, Davinia's husband, watching on behalf of the Tanty and discharging four criminals off his head-count by the most direct route possible. The last thing he would want would be an escape attempt, a rescue, or a botched execution. Peter was there to make sure, too.

Johanna turned to the new nanny Annaliese, who was standing guard over the pram. It was clear the girl was shaken up by what she was witnessing. She was also new to Ankh-Morpork, having arrived in a big frightening city from a farming backwater somewhere in the Stos.

"You don't need to look." Johanna said, kindly. "But ensure Bekki is safe. _Dankie_."

The VIP platform was fairly full. But he frowned, seeing a space had unaccountably opened up where her husband Ponder Stibbons was standing with Mustrum Ridcully and Irena Politek. Ridcully was here to see justice done on behalf of the wizard Theopracticus, one of the murder victims. Irena because… well, a Witch goes where she damn well likes. Right now, he, Ponder and Irena appeared to be having a seemingly one-sided conversation with an unseen fourth party. _If you didn't know better, you'd suspect a touch of insanity…_

EVEN THOUGH I'M HERE FOR WORK. THERE IS ALWAYS AN INTERESTING ATMOSPHERE AT THESE EVENTS.

"A gala performance, you might say."

INDEED, MR RIDCULLY. THESE GENTLEMEN WHO ARE ABOUT TO MEET ME HAVE INDEED SENT A LOT OF WORK MY WAY OVER THE YEARS. AND NOW IT'S _THEIR_ TURN.

Ponder glanced over to Johanna, who was watching him intently.

"She can't, err, see you?" he asked. Death shook his head slightly.

I AM OFTEN NEARBY TO ASSASSINS. BUT IF THEY SEE ME DIRECTLY, IT MEANS THEY HAVE FAILED IN THE CONTRACT. THEREFORE ASSASSINS PREFER _NOT_ TO SEE ME. A PITY. GIVE HER MY REGARDS, PROFESSOR STIBBONS. I FEAR WE SHALL ONLY EVER ONCE HAVE A DIRECT CONVERSATION.

"But, err, not for some time yet?" Ponder asked.

"YOU HAVE TIME, PROFESSOR. SO DOES YOUR WIFE. NOW IF YOU EXCUSE ME, I AM NEEDED ELSEWHERE?"

Johanna watched the gap on the podium close and the magic-users relaxed visibly. One of those little mysteries, she thought. She turned her attention to the four handcuffed men on the scaffold. Them. The principal players. The stars of the show. Although there was no way any of them would be coming back for an encore or to take a bow. Not in this life, anyway.

 _The illegal and false imprisonment of the Jefferson family of Number Five Shallow Valley._

 _The attack en masse at Eighteen Spa Lane with the intention of criminal destruction, robbery, rape and murder of the occupants. By implication, conspiracy to murder and the attempted murder of the following people:_

 _Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes_

 _Professor Ponder Stibbons…_

 _And ten others, plus a variable number of Goblins._

The party on the podium leant forward expectantly. This was what they were here for. The end. Of seven or so months of anxiety and worry and concern. An end. And payback.

Johanna watched the four men on the scaffold. Mr Trooper was moving from man to man, acting for the crowd, reciting his no doubt carefully prepared final words, those nearest in the crowd able to listen in, and laughing appreciatively. Or dutifully. Three of the men were passive, neither fearful nor defiant, accepting mutely and silently as the hoods went on and the nooses were looped over their necks and adjusted. They didn't struggle as their feet were guided to the right position on the traps. The priest followed on, reciting the approved words. Behind them, Stoneface Vimes glared silently, watching the scene intently, no doubt there to make sure they were properly dead. Johanna suspected he'd go and check the bodies below, just to make absolutely sure.

An expectant silence was falling over the crowd.

And Mr Trooper came to the fourth man, who glared him fully in the face. The fourth man then turned away and looked out over the crowded square, defiant to the last.

Johanna suddenly knew there was something she now had to do. Something vitally necessary. A final touch. She went to the pram and reached in. Carefully, lovingly, with reassuring words to Annaliese, she lifted her infant daughter, now maybe ten weeks old, into her arms. Bekki gurgled sleepily but recognised her mother's warmth.

Then she looked, one last time, into the hate-filled mad raging eyes of Preet duPlessis, the man who had brought all this about and tried his best to kill her. She restrained a shudder. Then lifted her child aloft.

 _You are about to die. I'm still here. And so is my daughter!_

The gesture was wordless. But hugely satisfying. She saw duPlessis' face contort in rage. Then mr Trooper wrestled the hood over his head…

And Johanna heard her daughter crying out in fear and alarm. Lifting Bekki down, she saw her daughter's eyes were fully open and she was crying in fear. Feeling shame and guilt, she sought to soothe her.

And across the square, four ropes tautened and four bodies swung…

"If _you_ had not done that, _I_ would have done." Johanna's mother said, with approval.

" _Vorbei_. Well done." her father said. But he still shook his head slightly.

Mariella looked at her older sister, her mouth slightly open with shock and not a little awe.

Julian Smith-Rhodes took a deep breath.

"Remind me never to fall out with your side of the family." he said.

Johanna soothed Bekki, and returned her to the pram.

"Well, it's over." she said. "Let's go home. I think we all need a drink."

* * *

And now, nearly nine years on, that moment had returned to haunt her.

" _Is it ever truly over?"_ she thought. She took a deep breath.

"Rebecka. Listen to me. You know on the night you were born, very many things happened? Well, in the months leading up to your birth, we were troubled by bad men…"

Much later, Bekki nodded and tried to understand what she had just heard, pretty much in full, for the first time.

"Did anything happen on the night of _my_ birth, mummy?" Famke asked. Johanna shook her head.

"Apart from your being born, you mean? No, nothing. It was a quiet night. No gang of armed men kicking the doors and windows in and seeking to kill us all. Just me going to the Lady Sybil, and _your_ turning up some time later."

"That's not fair, mummy!" Famke protested. "Why should Bekki have got all the fun?"

Johanna patted her stomach with a free hand. It wasn't showing much yet, but Number Three was on the way. She wondered how exactly they'd finessed it to get the kids at nice manageable roughly four year intervals. So _some_ things could work out well. If you tried.

"Fair? Yes. It is. For me, anyway. Once is enough, for that sort of thing. Don't you agree, Ponder?"

Ponder Stibbons smiled agreement. He still wondered just exactly how he's got here. One minute a conscientious bachelor Wizard working his way up the ladder. Then the impossible – a girlfriend. Then a wife. The same person, in fact. And now he was a father. Several times over. And he realised he really liked it. Even though marriage to an adventurous career Assassin had never been dull and had led him, by her side, into some places of utter bowel-loosening terror. He realised he wouldn't give it up for _anything_.

And, he realised, his daughters were not going to be completely _normal_. Neither of them. It didn't matter. He loved them fiercely and realised it was going to be interesting to watch them growing up. He suspected they'd both be exceptional people. **(5)** It was up to him, and to Johanna, to do their best to see they were exceptional people for the right reasons.

And he was looking forward to it.

* * *

 **(1)** Wizards can get touchy about these things. Ponder usually had his on the lowest possible setting of "Please do not do this again without permission". Other Wizards tended to be a little bit more emphatic. They also tended not to bother with setting their Staffs to recognise that sometimes people touched them innocently or by accident. Or, in the case of Ponder and Johanna's servants, ran a feather duster over them. It had been the scream and the smell of burning feathers that had alerted Ponder to the need to re-set his Staff to recognise when it was being cleaned.

 **(2)** Bekki had been put out to reach up and touch the Staff and hear a voice speaking out of apparently empty air. The voice had said ++Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons?++ Professor Stibbons has applied parental controls on this Device.++Access to content is blocked to you and is password-of-power protected.++Please consult the Professor for guidance.++Thank you and have a pleasant day.++As you ask, you may think of me as the System Administrator.++

 **(3)** Teachers at the Assassins' Guild School were trained in recognising the symptoms of psychopathy. It was possible, the Guild knew, to nurture the _wrong sort_ of killer. Taking a psychopath, and training them in Assassin skills, was held not to be prudent or wise. Another Jonathan Teatime would not be good for _anyone_.

 **(4)** that is, pug-ugly. Boerboels, a VERY large South African mastiff, have faces chock-full of personality and character. People tended to look at Johanna's new dogs and ask if this was a case of her upping the stakes in terms of sheer size of chosen domestic pet. And as for her housecats… on Roundworld, Pyn and Smart would be Maine Coons. Cats and dogs in her household had signed their own non-aggression treaty early on, and got on amiably enough, respecting each other's space so long as meals arrived on time and there was enough for everybody. This was held to be a Good Thing.

 **(5)** It is true to say that _**all**_ parents believe their children are exceptional, bright, talented and gifted, which is often an opinion that flies in the face of the objectively considered evidence. But just now and again, they're right.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future. Did I mention I am reading Nelson Mandela's biography** _ **"Long Walk To Freedom"**_ **and gathering information on what life was like for the other half of South Africa? Useful background for when I come to write Black Howondaland.**

 **Llamedosian placename – got to be long and intricate and a gag perpetrated at the expense of those who cannot speak the language.**

Llanydrefgydageglwyssantonanaoruchwylioddlawerynorfodol. Agogoch.

For future use; names of horses belonging to Boer War generals.

Koos de la Rey – horse called Bokkie, or Boykie.

"Ilunga" is a word in one of the Bantu languages spoken in Africa that means "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time".


	5. Konfrontasie

_**Strandpiel 5: K**_ _ **o**_ _ **nfrontasie**_

 _ **In watter Rebecka haar grond moet hou**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. And fleshing them out.  
**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.**_

 _ **Right now I have a painful problem with teeth, am on heavy duty painkillers and antibiotics because my bloody dentition is betraying me (upper jaw problem that may require a dental hospital stay, bleeding hooray) and I need to do something to take my mind off it. Hoping this tale has coherence. Kind of floaty now and full of warm fuzzies because of all the medication. But this should not affect my writing too much. The luminous green spider sitting on the desk is telling me it's okay and encouraging me to keep going. Weeble.**_

 _ **The pain is easing and the drugs are working. But without a properly functioning front tooth, at the moment I am doing a very good Igor voice. Without the ability to perform autosurgery and swiftly replathe thothe teeth that need replathing. And big problemth with enunthiating the letterth "v" and "f" whenever they come up in thpoken contherthation. Ah well.**_

 _ **Back to the story.**_

 _ **We are now possibly four or five years after the events described in the tale "Gap Year Adventures". The Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons family home on Spa Lane is playing host to two more family members, who are visiting Ankh-Morpork on vacation from a life elsewhere. These two visitors are welcome guests and Johanna is very pleased to host them and catch up with their lives after graduation from the Assassins' Guild School. Bekki and Famke are also delighted to have them stay.**_

"My gods, you're _heavy_." Emma Roydes remarked. Smart the family cat purred contentedly and looked up at her with an expression that said "That isn't _my_ problem. Just try and move me. I'm perfectly happy with being on a warm friendly human lap. You're a human. Your role is to provide a lap. I'm a cat. I sit on laps. That's how it is."

Smart shifted her weight in a deliberate and unhurried way that said she was _perfectly_ happy with the situation, thank you very much. So deal with it.

Emma sighed and decided to deal with it. She quite liked cats. And she quite liked the family cats at Spa Lane. It was just that as cats went, these were built over-scale. Johanna seemed to go for larger than usual family pets. The dogs, for instance. Klipdrift and Rooibuis were pretty much at the top end of the scale for dogs. You didn't get much bigger than Boerboels. If St. Onan dogs, the ones used for mountain rescue in Überwald and Lancre and places like that, could carry a small keg of restorative brandy around their necks to sustain lost travellers, then a typical Boerboel could carry a full _vat_. _And_ a St. Onan between its jaws.

Acerian Maine Coons were the Boerboel of the domestic cat world. Built big. And they tended to be fairly emphatic in their wishes. If a Maine Coon wanted to sit on your lap – you made room.

"So where to next?" Ponder Stibbons asked the visitors. He'd seen both girls make the long transition from being typical eleven year old girls just starting out at the Guild School into becoming self-assured and confident young adults. It had been just as interesting and educative with Mariella, who'd been the first. And as with Mariella, he felt a sort of easy accepting warmth and almost a fatherly feeling of accomplishment in having helped bring it about. It was, he reflected, something to feel pride and satisfaction in. He'd never asked to be a sort of surrogate father, a responsible adult, to teenage girls. But marriage to Johanna had brought responsibilities like this: she'd been a resident Housemistress at the Guild School, and had taken on next-of-kin and responsible adult duties to younger members of the Family who had become Guild students, with their own parents a long, long, way away. It still amazed him as to how well he'd stepped up to the mark. And it would make him a better father to his own, actual, flesh-and-blood daughters. He hoped.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande grinned happily. She was dressed in the plain green uniform of her Army kommando, as was Emma. Both had neatly styled short hair. That had taken some getting used to: he had been so used to Emma's long red hair and Young Johanna's flowing strawberry-blonde. But Johanna, the older Johanna, had pointed out that one of the rites of passage of compulsory military service, one of the first shocks that really knocked it into you that for two years your body was not your own and it belonged to the Army, involved having it all shorn off, whether you liked it or not. Hair went. They let you start growing it back later, admittedly. But look on the bright side. If they sent you up-Bush, into the green, you were better off _without_ it. Long hair in the jungle was uncomfortable. And you didn't want the weight and the sweaty itch distracting you if you were patrolling the kaplyn, with _them_ a crossbow shot or a short screaming assegai-filled rush away. Visibility was not great in the jungle. An enemy could creep up very close without you being aware of it.

"We're almost up to the two years, now." Young Johanna said, thoughtfully. She absently touched the new rank badge of Captain, black stars inobtrusive against the dark green of her epaulettes. Promotion was fast in the Slew. If you were good enough. Young Johanna, in the opinion of her senior officers, was _good_. She had the combat and leadership experience to prove it.

Emma, who was still only a Liutnant, nodded.

"At least we got to join up together." she said. "Aunt Mariella had to do it on her own. She did well, too."

Aunt Johanna smiled, feeling pride and satisfaction in the girls. She'd helped educate them and bring them up right. It was a nice warm feeling. _Achievement_.

"Ja." she said. "It is getting to be a family tradition now. The Guild School. Fort Rapier for recruit induction. And then when General Dreyer heard of you both. He snapped you up and said " _I want you_.""

"We got the sales pitch." Emma agreed. "It made it worthwhile after all the crap at Rapier."

Emma Roydes, with no great fuss or drama, had approached Pieter van der Graaf at the age of fourteen, after a memorable visit to Howondaland. Born on the Sto Plains and brought up in a farming family near Scrote, and discovering which Family she was distantly a member of, she had made a decision. She had asked the Ambassador how exactly you went about changing your nationality, and emigrating to a new country. Uncle Pieter had heard her out and gently said it couldn't be done officially until you become an adult at age eighteen. But if you're considering it, we can at least start you off. Your parents _must_ know. They have a say too. Until you are eighteen. But we can give you citizenship lessons. Explain the rights and the obligations involved. You must keep up your lessons in _Vondalaans_. That is good too. And you need citizens in good standing to support your application for citizenship. People prepared to sponsor you and attest you will not be a drain on our nation's resources. To demonstrate you are capable of getting a good job and supporting yourself. You must stay out of trouble and not get a criminal record. And to obtain full citizenship of our land, there is one thing you _must_ do. This is not negotiable…

The Smith-Rhodes family had collectively agreed to sponsor and support Emma's application for citizenship. Johanna had said, gravely, there'd be no turning back now. Uncle Charles was involved. You've heard that when you sign a contract with Astfgl, Lord of Hell, in your own blood, Astfgl will come to claim his price?

Johanna had patted Emma on the shoulder.

"Well, you're a Smith-Rhodes now. And Uncle Charles can make Astfgl look like a kind dotty old maiden aunt. Trust me."

Emma had been sworn in as a citizen on the afternoon of her eighteenth birthday, in a short ceremony at the Embassy. Quite a few Smith-Rhodes family members had been present.

"Congratulations." Uncle Pieter had said. "And happy birthday. Now sign _this_ set of papers…"

Emma took a deep breath, and signed the acceptance form that said that of her own unforced free will, and in full informed understanding of the implications and obligations involved, she was making herself available for two years of compulsory military service in the armed forces of Rimwards Howondaland.

At least she'd got to be called up in the same draft as her friend Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande. They ended up in the same recruit platoon at Fort Rapier. Johanna suspected Uncle Charles had pulled a few strings. She wouldn't be surprised. Emma's nickname in her platoon had been _die Poorkie._ The Morporkian _._ But she'd been accepted. And after that, into the Selous Scouts. The Slew. The élite fighting kommando, now an expanded brigade under its commanding officer Hans "Crowbar" Dreyer. As The Crowbar had said when welcoming his two new rookie officers, it was getting to be a postgraduate college for young Smith-Rhodes' who'd been to the Assassins' School. A rite of passage.

And now, after some combat experience, the two years were coming to a close…

Bekki and Famke Smith-Rhodes had been listening intently to their cousins' tales of being in the Army. Famke had been excited, wanting to hear stories about fighting and how it was to take on the enemy hand-to-hand. Johanna had to kindly rein in her younger daughter and ask her to calm down a bit, please. _But you can't fault her for enthusiasm…_

"It'll be your turn soon enough, kid." Young Johanna had said, kindly. "It'll get round to you soon enough. Don't you worry."

Young Johanna patted the machete she wore at her hip. It was an old comfortable weapon. It had been in the Family for a long time. Older Johanna felt a pang of loss and regret. Oh, she had a new weapon now. Knowing the moment would come, she had been to the best Dwarf swordsmith she could find, explained the situation, and commissioned what would be, as near as damn it, to an exact replica. Dwarfs knew about these things. The importance of continuity, of tradition, of some weapons being family heirlooms that passed down the generations. And the Dwarf had done a magnificent job. Well worth the dollars involved.

But Johanna still missed the sword. The one she'd received, on her own eighteenth birthday, from her Aunt Johanna, her father's sister. Who had received it from her own mother, also called Johanna Smith-Rhodes. In the understanding that _one day_ …

Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande had completed her Final Run and graduated from the Assassins' School. Her aunt, Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes, had unbuckled her weapons belt, removed the machete and its scabbard, and explained about all the women who had worn this weapon, right back to the original Johanna van der Kaiboetje Smith-Rhodes.

"It's your turn now." she had said. "Don't disgrace the weapon. Make them all proud of you. Including me."

Young Johanna had accepted with grace and solemnity. The machete now hung at her hip.

"And when the day comes, pass it on." she had added. "You will know when and who to."

Two glasses of klipdrift had sealed the ceremony.

And now, Johanna considered her daughters and felt a wince of apprehension. Her daughters were citizens. In a few years, they'd be required to enlist…

She wondered about Bekki, who'd be first. Her oldest daughter was quiet and had the look on her face that said she was thinking deeply about things. Considering. Johanna wondered what sort of two years Bekki would have. She suspected Bekki wasn't a good fit for the military. Famke might do better when her time came. _We'll deal with that when the day arrives. One step at a time…_

"I could sign on again for regular service." Young Johanna said. "Rolling three-year contracts. Uncle Pieter said, when I saw him last, that Emma and I would be a really good fit for the Diplomatic Service. You know. Military attachés somewhere. He thought Emma would be ideal for an embassy on the Central Continent. Dual nationality and everything. A foot on both continents. A _Strandpiel_. With Assassin training."

"He explained about it." Emma said, brightly. "The accepted stuff. You command the security detachment at an Embassy. Assassin training means you know what to do and what to look out for. You get to do the stuff that's out in the open. You know, work with the armed forces of the host country. And the other things…"

"Where Assassin training is _also_ useful." Young Johanna said. "Where it gets _interesting_."

"And dangerous." Old Johanna remarked. "No doubt Uncle Charles would have an opinion to express."

"He's an interesting man." Emma remarked. "Did I tell you we spent a leave as his guests at Jacarinthia House?"

"No." Old Johanna said. "But I would not be in the least bit surprised. What offers did _he_ make about careers after you leave the Army?"

* * *

Bekki went to bed that night feeling worried and apprehensive. She'd really loved meeting Emma and Johanna again. Part of her life, something she'd found hard to deal with, was making deep attachments to people she'd loved and felt close to who'd been there for years. And then they moved on and suddenly they weren't there any more. Auntie Mariella, for instance, who'd been close and loving and kind and, well, all an auntie should be, all you could ask for in an auntie. And Rivka, who it had carefully been explained to her wasn't an _auntie_ as such, but like a sort of big sister, who'd been really pretty and really close and really funny and who she really loved and who had loved Bekki in return. Then suddenly they were gone, went away to tour Howondaland, Mummy had explained. Letters and pretty things had arrived, but it hadn't been the same. The older dogs had died about then, as well, Kaffee and Crème.

Emma and Johanna, her cousins, had filled the Mariella and Rivka gap in her life and they had pretty much the same sort of friendship. And then they'd finished at the School where Mummy taught, and they'd gone to Howondaland too. There'd been some sort of ceremony where Mummy took the sword off she wore at her belt – Bekki couldn't remember a time when Mummy _hadn't_ worn that sword – and given it to Johanna. Daddy had been there too, and Godsfather Julian. Bekki had sensed something else in the air that evening. Daddy had been quiet and very respectful. Bekki had asked him about that odd taste in her mouth that had happened during the ceremony where Mummy had given the sword to Cousin Johanna. Like… Bekki struggled for words to describe it. Like some sort of tingling metal on your tongue, Daddy. Sharp and sour, like lemon juice but not as tasty.

Her father had hugged her shoulders.

"Me too." he said. "But I bet we're the _only_ people tasting tin."

Bekki had even asked her sister. Famke had made a face.

"Tasting _metal_ in your mouth? You get some really silly ideas, Bekki!"

Her father had smiled tolerantly.

"Some things attract magic. Like static electricity. They aren't magic in themselves but it's like when you put a jumper on in a dry room in the dark. Sometimes you see a blue spark in the air."

"Only…" Bekki groped for words. "The sparks weren't blue, Daddy. It's the… other colour. When you see a rainbow and you _know_ there are eight colours there, but when I said that at school, people thought I was being daft or I couldn't count, as everybody knows there are only seven colours in a rainbow."

Bekki closed her eyes against the memory of other people's derisive scorn. Her father, who'd been there himself and knew what it felt like, took her hand.

"But I know there are _eight_ colours!" she said.

Ponder smiled at her.

"So do I, sweetheart." he said. "Your mum and your sister and most people at school will only ever see _seven_ , though. That eighth colour does have a name. It's called the _octarine_. We're privileged. We get to see it. Our secret."

Bekki pondered the octarine, and what it meant, as she went to sleep.

* * *

And then when she awoke she was standing, barefoot in her nightie, on a beach of black sand, with no clear ideas as to how she'd got there. The sky above was black too, with strange stars in it. A cold wind sighed and soughed and she shivered a little.

It did not feel like a nice place. Not at all.

REBECKA. REBECKA MONIKA IRENA SMITH-RHODES-STIBBONS.

Bekki turned, cautiously. She considered the tall shrouded figure who had used her full name.

"Oh." she said. "It's _you_."

DO YOU KNOW, REBECKA? I'M MORE USED TO WITCHES WHO ARE A LOT OLDER THAN _YOU_ RESPONDING TO MY PRESENCE WITH THAT SORT OF ATTITUDE.

"That sort of attitude?" Bekki asked.

A MATTER-OF-FACT ACCEPTANCE VERGING ON SLIGHTLY SCORRNFUL DISMISSAL. Death said. AS IF MY TURNING UP IS NO BIG THING, WITH OVERTONES OF "YE GODS, WHAT DOES HE WANT _NOW_?"

Bekki shrugged.

"I saw you when you turned up to claim Kaffee." she said. "I got _really_ upset with you."

I WAS AWARE THERE WAS NO COMFORT I COULD OFFER YOU, AND I WISHED TO GET THE WHOLE THING OVER AS QUICKLY AS I DECENTLY COULD. Death remarked. WHEN YOU CAME AT ME PUNCHING AND KICKING AND SCREAMING. THOSE KICKS ON THE SHINS REALLY HURT, BY THE WAY.

Bekki felt a hot flush of shame and guilt. Godsmother Irena had been there and had grabbed Bekki round the waist and physically hauled her away. Mummy, who had been kneeling next to the dying family dog and who had started weeping, had seemed perplexed to see her daughter screaming and crying and kicking out at an apparently empty space. Daddy had apologised into apparently thin air. Then Daddy and Godsmother Irena had explained it to her later. At length. Bekki realised that Death had just been there to collect Kaffee's soul. Not to actually _kill_ a beloved family pet and certainly not to gloat about it. Just to do a necessary job. He didn't deserve a distraught little girl repeatedly kicking him hard and painfully on the shins.

She hung her head in red-flushed shame.

"Sorry." she said, meaning it. There was a sense of the working relationship having thawed.

I SUSPECT WE ARE GOING TO SEE EACH OTHER A LOT, REBECKA. I TOO AM SORRY OUR FIRST MEETING WAS NOT IN THE MOST IDEAL OF CIRCUMSTANCES. BUT YOUR APOLOGY IS ACCEPTED. WE SHOULD HAVE A FRIENDLY PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP, I THINK. AND START AGAIN.

She took the offered bony hand. It felt okay, not unpleasant.

"Mr Death?" Bekki asked. "Where is this place and why am I here?"

THIS IS A PLACE THAT STANDS OUTSIDE THE DISCWORLD. IT IS KNOWN AS THE DUNGEON DIMENSIONS, A VARIATION OF THIS PLACE IS SIMPLY "THE DESERT". I WILL NOT HIDE IT FROM YOU THAT THERE IS PERIL HERE AND I AM HERE TO COLLECT _SOMEBODY_. I AM ALLOWED TO TELL YOU THAT THIS IS A PLACE ALL MAGIC USERS MUST VISIT ONCE. IF YOU SUCCEED IN WHAT IS TO BE DONE HERE, YOU WILL RETURN.

Bekki considered this.

"And if I don't succeed?"

Death paused before replying.

ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE CONCEPT OF WHAT YOUR MOTHER AND HER WORKING COLLEAGUES DESCRIBE AS "THE FINAL RUN"?

"Yes, but I'm not even _ten_! That happens to people when they're eighteen!"

THAT HAPPENS TO _ASSASSINS_ WHEN THEY ARE EIGHTEEN. Death corrected her. YOU ARE A MAGIC-USER. THIS HAPPENS TO MAGIC-USERS WHEN IT HAPPENS. KEEP YOUR HEAD, AND USE YOUR WITCH-SENSE. YOU HAVE IT, OR YOU WOULD NOT BE HERE AT ALL.

"What do you have to do now?" Bekki asked Death.

OBSERVE. AND WAIT. THE PEOPLE YOU WILL SOON ENCOUNTER, BY THE WAY, ARE PEOPLE I HAVE NO TIME FOR _WHATSOEVER_. I _DO_ HAVE TIME FOR YOU. AND YOUR FATHER IS SOMETHING OF AN ACQUAINTANCE.

B ekki got the feeling Death was on her side, somehow, and didn't hold any ill-will over the shin-kicking business.

AND I SUSPECT YOUR MOTHER WOULD GET A TRIFLE ANNOYED WITH ME IF ANY HARM BEFELL YOU HERE. THAT IS A CONSIDERATION TOO. GOOD LUCK, AND THINK LIKE A WITCH. THAT SHOULD NOT BE TOO DIFFICULT FOR YOU.

Then Death was seemingly not there any more. Bekki took a deep breath. She reached up for the amulet that had been bestowed on her at her Naming. Oupa Mustrum had said it was help and protection. Then realised she'd taken it off before going to bed. It was on her bedside cabinet. _Poot._

And then, _they_ were there. As if they'd always been there, but had chosen that moment to appear. And Bekki knew them. She'd seen things like that before, on the margins of her bad dreams. As if they came from somewhere outside her dreams, and were watching to see what she would do and which way she'd go.

But tonight, _they_ were centre-stage. Surrounding her. At a distance, but still surrounding her. Feeling her. Sensing her. Bekki thought they were creepy. Like that man Mr Verkramp. He'd been a guest at dinner every so often. Bekki had found this hard to understand. Mr Verkramp was a _creep_. He made her shudder. She could tell Mummy and Daddy didn't want him there. The servants, nice sweet Blessing and funny laughing Eve, even the usually solid Claude, all treated him with wary respect. Blessing seemed frightened of him. Eve had whispered to her later that Dorothea the cook had spat in his soup. Mummy treated him with absolute formal politeness. And had said later "you will find out that sometimes you don't have any choice, Bekki."

Verkramp would have been at home among these things. And not the prettiest of them, either. Bekki made herself stand her ground and hold the line. _Staan jou maan. Vorbei. Staan jou_ _ **Dinge**_.

She considered them. They didn't look nice. But they looked sort of absurd, really. It wasn't what they looked like. As if they were trying far too hard to look scary and had gone past that. Into silliness. It was the atmosphere around them that was scary. _That_ had the power to hurt.

 _~~Rebecka. Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. Come to us. You have power. We can give you power._

"I don't want power." Bekki found herself saying.

 _~~Daughter of an Assassin. With her mother's blood in her. Daughter of a Wizard. With her father's magic in her. We can use your strength._

"You will not have my strength." Bekki found herself saying. "That's _mine_."

 _~~You can be our doorway into the world. The one who leads us into the world of light and magic._

 _~magic… magic… magic…_ came the susurrating whisper of a thousand voices. Bekki sensed the want and the need and a desire.

 _~~We will reward you. Bekki._

She felt angry suddenly. Only people she liked got to call her Bekki. These things had no right to. Verkramp had tried to presume familiarity and to call her Bekki. That had _really_ incensed her. The memory surfaced and the anger she'd felt against the creepy little man coalesced into a useful white-hot ball. She kept this safe for when she would need to use it. She also realised, the realisation coming up from some deeper level, that giving in would be an incredibly unwise thing to do. If these things got into the world, people she loved would get hurt. It was down to her to keep them safe. And at this very moment, only she could keep them safe. By fighting and resisting. The old song started to make sense. The one Mummy and the older members of her family sang as a hymn.

 _Hou jou lyn, en staan jou man -_

 _Dis hier waar ons hul kan keer!_

Bekki heard the next line in her head.

 _Staan vas! Staan vas, Hovondalaand!_

She stood fast. And held her line.

"No." she said, simply. "Shan't."

Bekki crossed her arms. She felt Them beginning to probe her mind. She sought to hold her line here too and discovered she could force Them out. With an effort. But this, she realised, was only defending. She needed to _attack_. And she wasn't sure how to do it.

And then a woman's voice was calling urgently to her.

" _Rebecka! Liewe hecksie!_ _Neem hierdie! Jy het 'n swaard nodig!"_

Her right arm sagged at the sudden weight in her hand. And then it was there. An adult-sized machete. Black-enamelled. She looked round at the woman who had urged her, the Little Witch, to take the sword she really needed…

* * *

And at 18 Spa Lane, a woman's scream ripped the night.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande awoke instantly and leapt out of bed. In the shared bedroom, Emma Roydes also sat upright, blinking a couple of times, then rolling out of bed and grabbing for her weapons. Emma heard Johanna swear in surprise and disbelief, but ran for the door, drawing her sword on the way. She didn't stop to put footwear on.

" _She's gone!"_ she heard the woman scream out, distraught. _"Rebecka! She isn't here!"_

It was Annaliese, the childrens' nurse. But her screams were raising the household. Johanna and Ponder appeared, as did Claude the butler and several house-goblins.

Older Johanna was soothing Annaliese and encouraging her to take deep calming breaths. Ponder had gone to check the bedroom. He came back, looking shaken.

"Bekki's not here." he reported. "She's gone."

"That's not the only thing." Young Johanna reported. "My machete's gone. My scabbard's empty."

* * *

Bekki looked at the woman – _women_ – who had appeared. There was substance to them, yes. But in some other sort of a way they weren't here, either. Here but not here. She felt something that connected her to the newcomers. She felt warmth, a link, love. And they all looked familiar, somehow, like sisters…

"Not quite sisters." said the one who appeared to be spokeswoman for all. She was speaking in Vondalaans, what Bekki thought of the family's indoors language. Morporkian was the one for outdoors and for visitors.

"Who are you?" Bekki asked. Although a little voice inside was saying "You _know_ who they are."

The spokeswoman looked about the same age as Ouma Agnetha and had the same sort of grey hair, with a shimmering hint that it had once been a lush red. She was dressed in veldt-style, tunic and trousers with long knee-boots. And she stepped forward, exuding a very familiar aura of confidence and poise.

"I am Johanna van der Kaiboetje. I married a man called Charles Smith-Rhodes. We started a family. This is my daughter Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes."

A second woman, younger and redder of hair, stepped forwards. Her face was pretty, but marred by several long scars. She smiled at Bekki.

Bekki felt the machete in her hand lifting upwards. Suddenly the weight of it was less. And the long hours spent in swords practice, the swords practice she dutifully persisted in to please Mummy and Godsmother Alice, the swords practice she thought she had no real feel for, began to make sense…

"In this place, the sword is yours. You need it, and here you have a right to use it. The right of family. We all carried it in our times. Our right arms are yours, _liewe hecksie_!" said the woman called Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes.

One of the Things, all tentacles and miscellaneous limbs, laughed.

 _~~Woman, you are here by magic. Thank you. We can claim and use that magic. You make us strong!_

The older woman with very faded ginger hair shook her head and smiled slightly.

"Magic is here, I grant you. But if you are not a Smith-Rhodes, it's not a magic _you_ can use. Two things link us together and make the magic. The first is our shared blood. The second is the sword in Rebecka's hand. We all carried that in our times. I can no longer wield that as I'm dead. I don't have a body any more to do the wielding. But we can lend what we can to Rebecka. We're lending her the Sword, for instance."

The four women stepped forwards.

Johanna van der Kaiboetje, the first Johanna Smith-Rhodes, rested an insubstantial right hand on her great-great grand-daughter's shoulder. Bekki felt fire and resolution filling her.

"Face your front, _liewe hecksie_." she said. "now remember what your mother taught you. And give them hell. _Pyn en smart_!"

Bekki stepped forwards. Things fought to flee out of her way as the family machete started swinging. Bekki sensed the four women falling into step with her…

* * *

"So Bekki's disappeared." her mother said. "And, by the looks of it, she managed to get into a room where two very good trained Assassins, with jungle combat experience, are sleeping. Then steals a sword belonging to one of them. Without anyone noticing. And then she disappears into the night."

Johanna looked at Ponder.

"It doesn't add up, Ponder!"

Search parties had been sent out. The neighbours had been alerted.

"Is she prone to sleepwalking?" Emma Roydes asked.

Johanna shook her head.

"This would be the first time." she said. "And she's never been that interested in weapons, either. This is completely out of character for her."

Ponder Stibbons closed his eyes and let his chin droop.

"Ponder, this is a _hell_ of a time to nod off… _oh_ …"

Young Johanna nudged Emma with her elbow. Emma suddenly realised.

* * *

Ponder Stibbons realised, as he drifted to his insubstantial feet and felt the black sand, exactly what was going on. And he realised with a shock of horror that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to intervene. He'd asked to be taken to where his daughter was, after all. And the magic had obliged. He'd reasoned that by going out of body he could locate her quickly and then return to direct a search party if this was needed. But out here, she was beyond the reach of any search party. And an unwritten rule applied. This was something every magic user had to face alone. Nobody could help. Not even an anxious father.

Yet… Bekki appeared to have help. Moral support, anyway. He wondered about the four women who were advancing behind her as she hacked through the Dungeon Dimension Things. They weren't actively helping, but they weren't hostile either. Far from it. And Bekki… It was like watching a scaled-down version of Johanna. The machete was being handled with deadly precision. As if it wasn't the training Bekki was receiving – as if _somebody else's_ long experience at swinging a sword was being transmitted through her. Johanna and Emmanuelle had agreed that she was conscientious about her swords training and couldn't be faulted for that, but at best, Emmanuelle would only rate her as "competent".

"Her heart is not in it, _chere amie_." Emmanuelle had said. "She does it to please us, I think, and because my son is there to encourage her. They think of each other fondly, as brother and sister, and like to do things together."

But here she was, fighting like a demon, like her mother would fight. Ponder realised his worries had faded and he was cheering his daughter on. He also realised this solved the mystery of the stolen sword. But how had it got here?

One of the semi-substantial women turned to him and smiled, nodding her recognition. He nodded back, noting how familiar she seemed. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing here. Manifestations, yes. But what of? And the four women he was looking at were alike, and at the same time _different_. And they all had something of Johanna about them…

And the last of the Things were fleeing into the distance.

 _Defeated again. They try the same thing every time. And every time they get beaten back. Have they no ability to recognise a pattern and change a losing strategy?_

Bekki, the sword drooping in her hand, stood panting for breath on the black sand. The four women crowded around her. Ponder allowed his insubstantial essence to drift down to her side, trying to find a gap to enter the circle. One of the women nudged another.

"Who's this?"

"Ag. It's only the father."

"Daddy!" Bekki said. "Have you met my great-great _ouma_ Johanna Smith-Rhodes? And this is my great- _ouma_ Johanna. And my great-great aunt Johanna. And my great-aunt Johanna."

Ponder mumbled variations on a theme of "Delighted" and "Pleased to meet you."

The youngest – well, the most temporally recent – Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled at him.

"Tell Johanna – _your_ Johanna – that I'm sorry I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to get to know her while I was alive. At least I got to hand the Sword to her before I died. She'll remember. I didn't know at the time I was going to be dead inside a year. I just knew I had to take Johanna Famke down to the River and hand the Sword over. Ask her. She'll remember. She was only just nineteen, as I recall. Just before they packed her off to Ankh-Morpork, and I never saw her again."

"You knew her?" Ponder asked. The woman smiled, insubstantially.

"Saw her growing up. Tell her I've seen some of the things she's done. And I'm proud of her."

"And of this little one." said the oldest Johanna. "Our _liewe hecksie_."

"We will need to go soon." said the Johanna with the scarred face. "The need that called us here is over. But before we go, _liewe hecksie_ …"

* * *

Bekki blinked as she woke up in her bed. She wondered about a very odd dream. Then realised she was still holding what had been her mother's sword and which now belonged to her cousin Johanna. She held it with a quiet reverence, knowing it had briefly been hers on loan when she really, really, needed a sword. And her arm and shoulders and back ached. An amused and kindly voice in her head said, _Of course your arm and shoulders will ache. I ached for_ **days** _after the battle at Blood River._

Bekki felt the gritty sand between her toes. Somehow it had got into the bed. Then she realised the house was up and lights were on. She got out of bed and went to find her cousin to give the sword back…

Mummy looked at her sternly. She was flanked by Cousin Johanna and Emma.

"Rebecka, did you take Johanna's machete without permission?" her mother asked.

Bekki looked her in the eye.

"Yes, I believe I did." she said. "Without Johanna's permission, anyway. I'm not certain _how_ , mummy. But I believe permission was granted."

Her mother frowned.

"You're not making any sense, Bekki."

Her father intervened.

"Johanna, I think I know what happened…" he said.

A little later, Johanna said "Show me." They trooped into Bekki's room. And inspected the gritty sand in the bed. It was mainly black. But there was red in it too.

Bekki remembered the parting words of Johanna van der Kaiboetje Smith-Rhodes, the founder of the family line. That Johanna had bade her stoop down and pick up a handful of the black sand from under her feet. To Bekki's surprise, in her hand it became a mixture of two soils, ceasing to be black sand.

"Are you surprised, _liewe hecksie_?" she had asked, as she and her daughters faded out of the scene. "This is your earth under your feet. Half the black loam of Ankh-Morpork. Half the red of our veldt. You will draw strength from both. _Wherever_ you go."

Bekki had lifted it.

 _Dis, my grond, hier in my vuis_.

"Shall we leave for home now?" Ponder had asked. He took his daughter's hand. Here, it felt perfectly warm and solid.

* * *

Johanna conceded that her daughter's nocturnal adventure had been a magic-user thing. And both her daughter and the missing sword had come back. So no harm done. This was for Ponder to deal with. His area of expertise.

"But she must have imagined the thing with all those dead people. Our ancestors. Dead people don't come back, do they, Ponder?"

"Well… zombies. Windle Poons. Reg Shoe. But I met them too, Johanna."

"Your aunt Johanna, mummy. The one who knew you." Bekki said. The very last time you saw her, she gave you the machete-sword on the riverbank. The sword you gave on to Johanna. She said she died not long afterwards."

"Yes. I remember." her mother said. She looked sad and distant for a moment.

"And she also had a message for oupa Barbarossa. _Tell my brother I still think he's a hulking great lout with a loud voice and no table manners_ , she said. _And I bet the great bliksem still farts loudly in public."_

Bekki's mother heard this, then a grin crossed her face and she started laughing.

"This once, I forgive you for swearing. That _was_ my aunt speaking!"

Johanna asked about the other women Bekki had met. She frowned on hearing about the woman with the scars and asked Bekki to describe them and indicate how they ran on the woman's face. Then came back with an old engraving she kept in an album somewhere.

"That's her, mummy." Bekki confirmed.

"Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes." her mother said. "My great-grandmother. She took eighteen hits from Zulus with assegais. Including several to the face. But she was still standing at the end of her battle."

Still later, she asked Ponder what the mechanism was. Her husband was forthright and unhesitant, for once.

 _ **"The sword.**_ So far that machete has passed through the hands of six women who are, or were, all called Johanna Smith-Rhodes. Blood relatives. Handed down the line as a family heirloom. Can you be surprised there's something of all of them in there? Get somebody with magical ability who triggers whatever's stored in there. Somebody like Bekki. Who had both the need and the ability to trigger it. Maybe what she triggered was just the stored memories and emotions of the former owners. Like a recording of some sort."

Ponder was on fire now. And flying.

"Dwarf devices, the ones that record sound, are made of complex combinations of metals. And we _just don't know_ what else they can record. A sword is a complex blend of metals. This ine is over a century old and it's been charged with high emotions on a lot of battlefields. They also say a sword takes something of the energy of anyone it kills or wounds. How many people, do you think? Over a century and six owners? You never know, Johanna. All this stuff could have been building up slowly for over a century. But up until now, there's never been a member of the Smith-Rhodes family with magical talent. so it's all been latent. Till now."

Both of them contemplated this.

"But why wasn't a version of _me_ there out there too? I mean. this was _my_ daughter." Johanna asked. Uneasily, she thought _Because I'm still alive…_

"Or maybe it really _was_ the ghosts of the women of your family line. Who came back when they were needed. Who knows? And you're in there too. Lots of you." Ponder grinned. "That's magic, or something very like it. And because it's a magic only members of the Smith-Rhodes family can tap into – especially now they have their first magic-user - it was utterly useless to the Dungeon Dimension Things. And Bekki's over that particular hump, now. They won't bother her again now she's faced them down and fought them off. And you'd have been _proud_ of the way she fought, by the way. She reminded me of you."

Johanna smiled and after a while she and Ponder drifted off to sleep. The house settled down after the upset of the night, and peace resumed.

* * *

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future. Did I mention I am reading Nelson Mandela's biography** _ **"Long Walk To Freedom"**_ **and gathering information on what life was like for the other half of South Africa? Useful background for when I come to write Black Howondaland. (aware of a valid criticism – that I'm dealing only with the White African experience and only occasionally touching on reality as experienced by other Africans, and falling into a sort of apartheid mentality by default – treating black African experience as invisible.)**


	6. Opvoeding

_**Strandpiel 6: Opvoeding - Education.**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.**_

 _ **Damn. Little question I've not pondered before. What exactly would be Alice Band's weak points as an Assassin? She must have some, otherwise she's in danger of being a Mary Sue with a LesYay streak… and I strive not to write bad lazy fics. I see her as being cautious around explosives. As a Stealth Archaeologist she must have a working knowledge of what they can do and how to skirt or defuse them, but would she prefer not to have an active involvement with setting them. Or something. I can see one other weakness, but not the sort Johanna would discuss with a nine-year-old daughter even as a for instance. "She likes pretty girls too much… just don't ask, Bekki". No, wouldn't work.**_

 _ **Right now I have a painful problem with teeth, am on heavy duty painkillers and antibiotics because my bloody dentition is betraying me (upper jaw problem that may require a dental hospital stay, bleeding hooray) Being zonked on prescription drugs isn't affecting fnord the writing too much. Thribble.  
**_

 _ **Back to the story. Fnord. Slight edit to tidy and sweep out little dusty corners.  
**_

Bekki and her friend Davvie Bellamy, sidelined for the moment, sat at the edge of the garden lawn and watched the two boys sparring with dulled blades. And they were good. There was no doubt about it. Phillipe-Henri, a year younger, was holding his own against his brother's determined attack. The swords rang as the two brothers circled each other, seeking for an advantage they could exploit. Bekki watched Manni, who at nearly ten was lean, wiry, supple, and, she recognised in a way she wasn't completely at home with, nice to look at. Although they'd grown up together since _forever_. Manni and Pippi were the nearest things she had to brothers. They lived next door, after all, and their mothers were friends. The children had been brought up together, an extended family. The families shared parenting duties and nannies. It was a good arrangement.

Davvie, plump, blonde and good-natured, a girl who wore big round-lensed glasses that made her look like a younger edition of her mother, watched critically.

"Pippi's going to drop his guard in a minute." she said. "He _always_ does that. Just watch."

Bekki conceded that Davvie Bellamy was better at Swords than she was. She accepted this. Mummy was matter-of-fact about it, pointing out that everybody has different strengths, and that while she was good with swords, other people, like your Auntie Emmie, are _better_ , and will always defeat me in a bout. On the other hand, I can fire a crossbow far more accurately than Emmie and she knows that. And if it came to survival in the veldt far away from any town, I would thrive and she would starve. Or freeze. She knows that too. And if Davvie's mother had a swordfight with either of us, she would be very much the loser. But if she chose to poison either of us, we would be dead in seconds. We would not even _know_. And your Godsmother Alice... Bekki noted that here her mother paused, as if wondering what she could safely say to her daughter about her godsmother... your Godsmother Alice could loose six arrows even before my sword was halfway out of its sheath. But she finds explosive devices a trial and prefers not to have to deal with them. So find your strengths, Rebecka. And know your weaknesses. More importantly, be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of others.

The idea that Davvie's mother might be inclined to poison people was alarming to Bekki. At first. But she quietly adored another of her adoptive aunts, the neighbour on the other side, and found her to be warm and kind and motherly and always ready with a snack or a cold drink. Davinia Bellamy did not employ a nanny, preferring to be a hands-on working mother who was always there, always approachable. She appreciated Annaliese and Sylvie, the governess employed by Auntie Emmie, for waht they could do; but much preferred having no intermediaries in bringing up her own daughter. Bekki thought about things again. Oh, she knew Grandmother Joan poisoned people. She accepted that some Assassins did. And were quite expert at it. She recalled Grandmother Joan's long spare figure, her austere and slightly disapproving face, and her long clever fingers. She could see her adoptive grandmother poisoning people for a living. And they said she was going to be Chief Assassin. Mistress of the Guild, when Lord Downey stood down and retired. Apparently Lord Downey, according to something Auntie Emmie had whispered to Mummy, had expressed a desire to actually _have_ a long happy retirement. He was keen for the only things his deputy put into his teacup to be milk and sugar, Auntie Emmie had said in her making-mischief voice.

Which would make Grandmother Joan into Mummy's boss, Bekki reflected. A woman who poisoned people for a living. And who also made beautiful yummy cakes and desserts, and who never failed to bring something nice over "for the kiddies" when she visited.

Bekki pondered the paradox of Assassins, professional killers. Who she knew were people like Mummy or Auntie Emmie or even Cousin Emma, when they weren't actually _killing_ people. They were just… people. And apparently not that long ago, Wizards had been killing each other a lot to become bigger Wizards with more status. Daddy had talked about this. He'd said this had gone on quite a lot when he'd first started out, as a student at the University. Wizards routinely killed the Wizards above them to be able to climb one rung further up the ladder. Meanwhile the Wizards on the rungs underneath _you_ …

Bekki had pointed out that Daddy was on the second-highest rung on that ladder, with only one person above him. The obvious spill-question hovered, unsaid.

Daddy had taken no offence.

"I was lucky. Your _oupa_ Mustrum arrived. Things changed. Nobody seriously tries to kill each other now. Nobody's seriously tried to kill _me_ , thank goodness. Although I think your mother might have had something to do with that. Especially after she found the scorpions in my boots. I think she had a quiet little word with the wizard who'd put them there, or something. The news got around. And I can look back and say – although now and again I have _wanted_ to, and believe me, I have wanted to, I've never killed another Wizard. I got to be Vice-Chancellor without killing _anybody_. Which makes me very lucky."

Mummy had smiled slightly **.(1)**

Bekki and Davvie carried on watching the boys sparring on the lawn. Pippi was tiring a little, but his brother was showing signs of fatigue too. It was going to be a close-fought bout. The swords clashed again in another flurry of parries and thrusts. Bekki realised they were good at it. Her sister Famke bounced excitedly and squealed encouragement. Auntie Emmie was now training her, too. Bekki sighed. When your little sister, who isn't even _six_ , is better at it than you are, despite only having been seriously training for less than a year…

"Told you." Davvie said. "He let his guard drop. Manni's too good."

Auntie Emmie stepped forward.

" _Assez, mes enfants."_ she said. It was easy to tell she was pleased. Her sons dropped their guard and made the obligatory bow to each other.

"I can see you will not shame me when you arrive as pupils at my school and appear in my classes, as pupils." she said. "That pleases me. Now. Emmanuel-Martin. What have I said to you about falling into a pattern of repetitive movement? That is a gift to your opponent, _mon petit. Ecoutes!"_

She fell into speaking to her sons in Quirmian. Bekki understood. Quirmian was the indoor language next door, as Vondalaans was in her home. She listened, and an understanding fell into place in her mind. Being around a family who spoke Quirmian in the house was no biggie. She'd just adjusted something in her ears and in her head, and it made sense. Auntie Emmie had been quietly pleased and encouraged her in this.

"Wish I know more of what they were saying. It's like, no offence, when people in your house start talking in Vondalaans." Davvie remarked. Bekki looked at her friend, puzzled.

"But you've been around them as much as I have." she said. "Shouldn't you have picked some of it up by now? It's easy. Auntie Emmie's telling Pippi off about dropping his guard. She's telling Manni off about getting into a pattern that's as reliable as a clock to anyone watching.."

"You're _good_ at languages, Bekki. I wish I was!"

Bekki frowned. The Bellamys only spoke Morporkian in the house. Bekki wondered how anyone could live like that. It sounded dreadful. Well, not _dreadful_ as such. But drab, with something missing.

But she _had_ grown up in a multi-language household. She wondered if that made people better at languages. Gave you a head start, or something. Manni and Pippi handled two languages effortlessly and switched between Morporkian and Quirmian even halfway through a sentence. They'd picked up a little Vondalaans too. Well, when Annaliese had been nannying everybody's kids, it happened. And Annaliese didn't even speak Vondalaans. Or at least, she'd started out speaking something called Phlegmish, which was related, like Kerrigian. But she'd become more Vondalaans over the years.

Bekki contemplated this. People visiting from Home – her other Home - remarked that Bekki and Famke could speak the language alright, but they've got some _odd_ twists and turns of phrase. That was down to Annaliese. Daddy had picked the language up. Well, he was forced to. Uncle Danie and Auntie Heidi observed that he had a Morporkian accent that was a mile wide but, hey, no biggie, Ponder, you speak our language. _Lekker, bro_. Bekki had noticed she could push the language she spoke in one direction, add in a few flounces and what sounded like un-necessary overcomplications that Vondalaans lacked, slant the cadences and rhythms differently, and then she was speaking Kerrigian. Add a few _really_ un-necessary trills and flounces and Talk In Old, seriously Old, and she could speak Phlegmish **.(2)** Annaliese had been taken aback. She'd gone away, then returned with several books in Phlegmish, suitable for a child. Bekki had devoured them even though the picture books about a boy called Cancan and his little dog Slushy had been a little bit _silly_. Funny, but silly. Like Cancan's hairstyle. How did that absurd little tuft in the front of an otherwise bald-seeming head stay up like that?

And the business with the servants. They talked among themselves in a different language. Or maybe as they were from different Howondalandian tribes, something made up of little bits of several languages. Claude's language was different to Eve's, for instance. Bekki had listened intently, then astonished Eve and Blessing by joining in their conversation. The maids had then clandestinely coached her and encouraged her, stressing that she should not tell Madam about this _just_ yet, please? Eve had said, in her dry funny way, that Madam would be _really_ surprised.

There was a song they sung. They were _very_ careful not to sing it when Mummy was in. They weren't so worried about humming or singing it when Daddy was there, Bekki noted. She wondered why they were so careful around Mummy or any of Mummy's family or indeed people from Howondaland. It was a _nice_ song.

One day, people were visiting. Bekki loved having Uncle Danie and Auntie Heidi there. Uncle Danie was big and funny and gentle. Like a big boy who hadn't properly grown up. Auntie Heidi put up with this. Then Godsfather Julian and Auntie Ruth arrived. They were welcomed. Bekki sat in the living room playing with her toys while the grown-ups talked. Eve was there to serve drinks.

Bekki found herself humming a song as she played. By degrees it became the song the maids sang as they worked.

 _"Nkosi sikelel' iWondala, Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo…"_

Then she realised all conversation in the room had stopped and everyone was looking at her.

"Bekki," Godsfather Julian said, blinking. He spoke slowly and deliberately. "Wherever did you learn that song?"

Bekki tried not to look at Eve, who had gone very still and quiet. She didn't want to get her into trouble. Eve was kind and nice and funny.

She looked round again. The woman she knew as Auntie Ruth had her stern face on. Bekki knew enough about Ruth N'Kweze to suspect she put that face on when she was trying very, very, hard not to burst out laughing. Ruth was currently looking very stern indeed.

"It's a nice song, Uncle Julian." she said. "I must have heard it somewhere. Nice songs, songs you want to sing."

Auntie Heidi and Mummy looked at each other. Then Mummy smiled.

"Ag, I know it." she said. "It's the one the maids sing when they think I'm not listening."

Mummy smiled at Eve.

"I get this terrible deafness sometimes." she said, "In both ears. Keep meaning to take it to a doctor. It comes and goes."

Eve relaxed.

"It's a shame Liutnant Verkramp at the Embassy is not afflicted by deafness." Mummy remarked. "He has an ear for some sorts of music."

"So be careful where you sing." Godsfather Julian added. "And _what_ you sing. And who's in the audience. Music critics can really put a crimp in things."

"Didn't hear a thing." said Uncle Danie, completely poker-faced. "Deafness runs in the family. Shame."

"I understand you, sir." Eve said. She suddenly looked very relieved. "Thank you, madam. I hope you are not too often troubled by deafness."

"As I say, it comes and goes." Mummy said, with a totally straight face.

A little later Auntie Ruth came over to sit with Bekki. Bekki thought her really dark brown skin was beautiful, and wondered why some people she met now and again didn't think so.

" _Kudala sagqibelana! Unjani?"_ she asked, pleasantly.

Without thinking, Bekki replied _"_ _Ndiphilile enkosi, unjani wena?"_

Auntie Ruth smiled pleasantly at her. Bekki saw her mother suddenly lift her head and pay some _very_ intent attention. Uncle Danie whistled appreciatively and said _"jislaik!"_

Ruth shook her head slightly.

"You know, when I was teaching our languages to Julian, it took him absolutely _ages_ to get to that stage?" she remarked. "You're, what is it now, nearly ten, and you've already got the hang of conversational Xhosa. That's like a sort of universal language in Howondaland, by the way. In places like Rumbabwe, which your people call _Smith-Rhodesia,_ they spell it _Shosa_ , but it's the same universal language. Well, I say _universal_ , but not many white people bother with it."

Ruth smiled again.

" _Ngicela ukhulume nami ngesiZulu?"_ she asked. Bekki blinked and tried to focus. She'd got the word "Zulu", and some of the other words sounded familiar, in the same way some Morporkian words sounded like the ghosts of words in Vondalaans… "praat" was an echo of the word "prattle", for instance, only it meant "speak" in Vondalaans and "to babble" in Morporkian… maybe Howondalandian languages had the same sort of echoes…

"Are you asking me if I can speak any Zulu?" Bekki asked, carefully. Ruth grinned happily.

"Which you probably don't at the moment, but I _could_ teach you some." Ruth offered. "That's if your mother agrees, of course, and as long as you don't care about it going down on your BOSS file as proof of your being a subversive."

"They probably opened one on Bekki the moment she arrived." Auntie Heidi said. "Just to get a head start and save time. Every Smith-Rhodes gets one. Johanna's probably got a whole filing cabinet to herself by now."

"Subversive woman, my bigsister." Uncle Danie agreed. He'd had his own run-ins with BOSS. **(3)** He didn't like the creepy Verkramp either.

" _Completely_ politically unreliable." Cousin Julian said.

Bekki looked uncertainly at her mother. Mummy smiled slightly. Bekki braced herself for another of those lessons about grown-up life not being as straightforward as it should be. She sighed. Why did grown-ups have to make it so _difficult_ for themselves? She, Bekki, didn't have a problem with, for instance, Auntie Ruth and Godsfather Julian liking each other the way they did. She thought it was really nice. Mummy and Daddy were fond of each other. In love. They could still do the holding hands and kissing thing and they'd been married since _forever_. Auntie Heidi really loved Uncle Danie. Anyone could see that. Auntie Mariella had her own thing going on and it looked a little strange from the outside that she could never say it outright and she _still_ called him all those rude words Mummy had warned her about repeating. But those really rude words, when you got past the sounds, sounded like "Listen, shit-for-brains, you know I really love you. You bastard."

But just because Uncle Julian, her Godsfather, was white of skin and Auntie Ruth was what people called black, as if that mattered, Bekki had been warned to be very, very, careful, and not to mention it anywhere outside the house or to people she did not know. "But why couldn't Uncle Julian and Auntie Ruth be happy and in love in public, Mummy? Why do they have to keep it a secret?"

Mummy had hesitated before replying.

"Wellnow. You've met Liutnant Verkramp, haven't you? _He_ thinks it matters. He'd use that to hurt Julian and Ruth. Because he's a nasty little sh… because he's nasty. And he has the power to be _really_ nasty. That's a good enough reason, for justnow. That you don't want him to find out."

"Verkramp's a bully, mummy! You teach me to fight bullies and not to give in to them!"

Mummy had nodded, soberly.

"And he's part of a big gang of bullies, Bekki. Called the Bureau Of State Security. And please be assured a lot of people are keen to fight them. We _do_ fight them, in our ways. But BOSS. Beware of that name. Be cautious. Not everything in your other country is right. BOSS is a big part of the wrong."

Bekki suspected she was a small part of a big conspiracy. Practically everybody in Mummy's circle of friends seemed to hate BOSS. And at the same time to be a little bit wary of them. Not frightened. Mummy was never frightened. But Bekki knew when Mummy was being cautious. She had explained that caution was a big part of being an Assassin. Being aware of something called _over-confidence_. Taking on more than you could successfully handle. Watching an opponent who needed to be dealt with but knowing you could not hope to do it today, as the opponent was too big and too strong and too well-defended. You watched. You observed. You gathered information. You looked for weaknesses. And maybe _tomorrow_ …

And BOSS had files on _everybody_. Bekki knew there was probably one on her. It would be a short slim file as she couldn't think of anything she'd done, at the age of nine, that was all that bad. The idea was scary. That there were policemen who wanted to arrest you because the way you thought, inside your own head, was considered to be a crime. Bekki knew, without needing to work out why, that this was _wrong_. But just because she had "Smith-Rhodes" in her name, and that in itself was enough…

Ruth hugged Bekki around the shoulders.

She began humming a song. It was the same tune the maids sang, but the words were different.

" _Yizwa imithandazo yethu,_

 _Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo."_

"Bekki? Not to be sung _anywhere_ Liutnant Verkramp, or anyone official from the Embassy, can hear it. _Important_." her mother said. Uncle Julian nodded his emphatic agreement. She caught the imploring look in Eve's eyes. And realised this was indeed important. Part of what she was coming to think of as a sort of Adult Conspiracy which, by degrees, she was being initiated into.

"I'll teach you the words, if you like." Auntie Ruth said. "That was the version in my language. IsiZulu."

"Which is part of the reason to be careful where you sing it." Godsfather Julian said. "That's a _seriously_ banned anthem at home. It's against the law to sing it. BOSS take the point of view that it's subversive, and any black person singing it is therefore guilty of a desire to overthrow the State and to rise in armed rebellion against their kind, just and fair rule by white people which is for their own good, as everybody knows the blacks are utterly incapable of governing themselves. Therefore we whites must assume the onerous burden of deciding what is right for them."

He shook his head.

"Some people are just _ungrateful_ , aren't they? Unreasonable, too. And bull-headedly stupid, to risk at least six months in prison for singing a song which is... utterly unrealistic, at least."

Bekki shook her head, then realised Godsfather Julian was being, what was the word, sarcastic. Ironic. Where you _heard_ one thing, but if you listened closely to the speaker and picked up the spill-words, you realised what they really _meant_ and what they really believed in was the complete opposite.

"So you can go to prison. Just for singing a song?" Bekki asked, disbelieving.

"It's a powerful song." Auntie Ruth said. "And yes, if you're black and you get caught singing it, you go to prison. Gods know what they'd do to a white person who sang it in public."

Bekki now knew why Eve had looked so worried and frightened. She vowed to apologise to her later.

"That's never been tested before." Auntie Heidi said. She looked at Bekki, amused. "But somebody's got to be the _first_ , I guess!"

"Why is it so serious?" Bekki asked, perplexed. "It's only a song!"

"Only a song." Auntie Ruth said, shaking her head. "Listen. It's about a Howondaland where everybody comes together as an equal. Where it doesn't matter what tribe you belong to. Where it doesn't matter what colour your skin is. If you're a Howondalandian, you _belong_. White, black or coloured. That's a big issue in your country, which doesn't exactly believe in these things."

And because Ruth was fundamentally honest, she added

"It's a big issue in my country too. We believe all Howondalandian peoples are equal and should live as equals in peace and prosperity. Even the whites. You're Howondalandian too. It's just that we believe all those equal people living in peace and prosperity and equality should at the same time accept that the Zulus are more equal than everybody else and the Paramount Royal House, which includes _me_ , is the most equal of all, and should rule everybody in perpetuity. For their own good, naturally. My dear father is therefore First Among Equals and the rightful leader of all Howondaland. In which we Zulus are the most equal tribe."

Ruth shook her head, sorrowfully.

"It's amazing how many people aren't prepared to accept that completely reasonable and correct proposition. Starting with you lot."

Bekki realised Ruth could at least equal Godsfather Julian in terms of sarcasm and irony. They were indeed a well-matched couple. It was a real, horrible, shame that they couldn't be a well-matched couple where _everybody_ could see it, not just among friends who they could completely trust with the secret. Bekki felt herself burning with the sheer _unfairness_ of it.

She forced calm on herself. Something was telling her nine-year-old self that all this was valuable. That the adults around her were, little by little, trusting her with grown-up things and trusting her to be grown-up enough to treat it as important. She didn't want to betray that trust.

This was important, even if she didn't fully understand it. And she was learning how things really were in her other country, which fascinated her. She wanted to go there someday, perhaps not just for holidays…

She heard Mummy saying "By the way, Eve, I'd be really interested in finding out how Bekki came to speak so much of your language. That's more than _I've_ ever been able to do!" in a friendly voice. She gathered Mummy was expressing approval, in a guarded way.

"As you wish, madam." Eve replied, neutrally. "Thank you for your understanding."

It was just another day in the Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons household…

And out there on the back lawn, under the eyes of friends and adults, Bekki fought a practice bout with dulled swords against her friend Davvie Bellamy. Like all the others, they were being gradually prepared for the transition to Big School. It was implicitly understood it would be the Assassins' School, where their mothers taught. Their mothers were therefore keen for them to be adequately prepared. Hence the informal lessons. Mummy also believed her daughter should get a grounding in some of the basic skills of self-defence and the intricacies of weapons handling because, well, these were useful life skills.

Several hours a week were set aside for tuition. Bekki and Davvie had to fit this around regular schooldays. The Convent School of Seven-Handed Sek, run by teaching nuns of the Spiteful Sisterhood, did not, as a rule, teach weapons drills **.(4).** It was good at a lot of things – Sister Mortifica, who taught languages, enthused at Bekki's wonderful ability in Quirmian which was absurdly ahead of her peers, and was starting her off in Toledan to see how she could get to grips with a related language – but it did not teach Bladed Weapons, Swords or Crossbows. There was an after-hours school archery team. Bekki had been approached to be a member **.(5)** But that was it. Weapons training had to be after-hours.

Bekki defended herself against another flurry of blows from Davvie. That was easy enough. She could guard, she could parry, she could block. No problem. But Davvie Bellamy was her friend. The idea of hitting her with a sword, even in a practice bout, was repugnant to her. She felt she just couldn't do it. Meanwhile Davvie had no such qualms about getting through Bekki's guard. Bekki thought Davvie was going to make a far better Assassin student than she ever would.

A little part of Bekki's head was remembering the night when she'd had to confront the Dungeon Dimension Things. That certainly hadn't been a dream. She knew that. She vividly remembered the people who had appeared to help. She understood that blood calls to blood. Somehow women in her family line had appeared to lend her a hand. She felt oddly privileged. Mummy had asked all sorts of questions about them and had seemed envious. But the Johanna Smith-Rhodeses past, the ones who had died, had somehow given her their collective sword-fighting skills for just long enough. Through the physical medium of a weapon they'd all carried, in their time. Bekki had felt the perfect exultation of being one with the weapon. She'd felt what a sword could do in the hands of somebody who knew how to use it. Four somebodies who had all wielded that blade in war. Plus, she suspected, something of her own mother. Mummy had put a lot of herself into that blade too, when it had been hers. There had been a lot of scattered bits of Thing on the black sand afterwards. Bekki had felt no guilt or moral qualms about killing _them_. None at all.

Bekki just wished all that had carried over into this world and remained with her. She still felt as awkward with a sword today as she ever had.

Aware of her friends Manni and Pippi calling encouragement, and of Famke shrieking things like "What are you waiting for? Hit her! Gods, Bekki, _wake up_!", and under the critical eye of her mother and Auntie Emmie, Bekki fought on as best she could. But the inevitable happened and she gratefully yielded the bout to Davvie.

"Your defence is a pig to get through, Beccs." Davvie said. She studied her friend with concern. "It always is. But, you know, you _can_ hit me. It's _allowed_. I won't take offence, and that's the whole point, after all."

Auntie Emmie was kind about it. She always was. She repeated the thing about an impeccable and praiseworthy defence. But defence, _ma petite_ , is only half the story and in itself does not win a contest. You must really learn to get over any qualms you have, and to attack. To see the weak point and go for it, _sans pitié_.

Mummy was blunter.

"You need to learn aggression." she said. "You are a gentle person like your father, and I love you for it, but being gentle does not win fights. Your sister has grasped this much. Now how can I teach you to be a violent, cruel and nasty old bitch like your mother?"

"Mummy!" Bekki said. "You're not cruel and nasty! Not at all!"

Her mother smiled. "But you aren't denying the other two, I notice."

Emmanuel-Martin de Lapoignard, one of three children born within a few weeks of each other and brought up together in neighbouring homes, joined them. Manni, not quite ten, was a dark-haired handsome boy with a ready smile, and the sort of eyes and personality that his mother suspected would be the downfall of respectable ladies as he grew older **.(6)** Bekki and Davvie, who occupied the position of sisters to him, were immune to this and just saw him as Manni, their lovely but sometimes irritating playmate from next door. His brother, a year younger, had the same status to them.

"You've got to work on your offence, Beccs." He said. His voice and manner was completely Morporkian. But he could switch to Quirmian in an instant. Bekki wondered if people thought that about her. Morporkian enough, but somebody who could just as easily switch codes and cultures to White Howondalandian and be indistinguishable from her mother's people. It was an interesting thought.

"You need to be able to go over to the attack. When you need to. And to do that at just the right moment. We can show you how."

Bekki nodded, feeling a little inadequate. She'd felt that keenly when the Dungeon Dimension things had pressed on her. She'd set up a defence that was like a castle wall. _Like a Wizard's high tower_ , a voice in her head said. But until the Johannas had turned up in her time of need, she hadn't known _how_ to attack. Then it had erupted from her. She really needed to know how to do this. She couldn't always count on long-dead ancestors to come to her rescue. Bekki suspected this wasn't the way it was going to work. That one time, in that place, where different rules applied, had been _special_. A one-off. no, she really needed to get over the inconvenient streak of niceness and learn to be more like Mummy. And like her great-aunt Johanna. And her great-great aunt Johanna. And her great-grandmother. Johanna. And her mother before her, the _first_ Johanna Smith-Rhodes... it had to run in the family, after all. **(7)**

"Have you had a House assignment yet?" Davvie asked, changing the topic. Manni grinned. It was the sort of ready confident grin you liked to be close to.

"They've decided to send me to Mrs Beddowes'." Manni said. " _Maman_ wants me to board. She says it'll be good for me. Beddowes because Monsieur le Balouard is Housemaster. He gets all the Quirmian boys. Makes administration easier if all the Quirmian-speakers go to the same place. And you two?"

"Mum doesn't want me boarding." Davvie said. "So I get to be a Day School pupil. It means I get to go home every night and sleep in my own bed. My brothers were Day School too. Mum insisted. Which means I get Mrs Mericet as my form-mistress." Davvie winced. Mrs Mericet was Joan Sanderson-Reeves. "What about you, Beccs?"

"Grandmother Joan isn't _that_ bad!" Bekki said. The others raised eyebrows.

"You've never seen her as a teacher." Davvie said. "My big brothers both _did_. Tim and Martin both said never to get her annoyed. She eats you alive if you do."

" _Grand-mère_ Joan." Manni said, thoughtfully. "I'd _love_ to know how you got her as your _grand-mère_."

"Long story." Bekki said. "I think everybody else kind of forced her into it. But there could be _worse_ grandmothers to have. At least I always get a really lovely birthday cake. Anyway. Mummy was in charge of Raven House for a long long time. So that's where I'll be going."

They talked about the Assassins' School for a while. All three had been told they would go there. Given who their mothers were, some things were both expected and seemingly inevitable. They expressed anticipation, trepidation and hope for their shared future.

And life continued for a while. Bekki had her tenth birthday, with a magnificent cake prepared by Grandmother Joan, and moved, day by day, to her eleventh.

And then her world came crashing down.

* * *

Lord Downey himself looked sorrowful and regretful.

"I'm so, so, sorry." he said. And he did indeed sound genuinely regretful. "We so looked forward to receiving Rebecka as a pupil. Great things were expected of a daughter of Doctor Smith-Rhodes."

He turned to Ponder Stibbons.

"There is no possibility of error, professor? No room for doubt, or for latitude in how we interpret the results of the test?"

Ponder sighed a great big resigned sigh. Next to him, Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes composed herself to accept the inevitable. But if she were honest with herself, she'd known this for quite some time.

"None whatsoever, sir. And given the candidate is my own daughter, I'm really not looking forward to having to break the news to her. There can be no room for doubt here. The standard tests in these circumstances were performed, and Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons has a very high score for latent magic, a score in the ninth decile for applied magical ability, and towards the top end of the scale for potential magic. Were she a boy, Unseen University would be offering her an instant scholarship."

"But she isn't a boy, professor." Downey observed.

Ponder sighed.

"No, sir. She isn't."

Downey heaved a resigned sigh.

"And the law is clear. There can be no such thing as a dual-qualified Assassin and magic user. Such a person would be too powerful and would present a massive danger if they went to the bad. The Patrician is emphatic on this."

He offered a consoling hand to Johanna.

"I'm as disappointed as you are, Doctor Smith-Rhodes. But we cannot now accept Rebecka to the Guild School. I'm so sorry."

The three sat in silence for a while. Then Downey said

"Your younger daughters?" in a hopeful voice.

"Famke is ebsolutely _un_ -megical, my lord." Johanna said. Ponder nodded assent.

"We don't know ebout Ruth yet." Johanna added. There was now a third daughter in the household. Downey brightened up. Two out of three of Johanna's daughters… he spoke quickly, wanting to seal the deal.

"But, in principle, we would be delighted to accept Famke. Absolutely _delighted_. Can I proceed to pencil her in to Raven House for her expected year of entry?"

The parents agreed. Now they only had to break the bad news to Bekki and work out where else she could be educated…

 _To be continued…_

* * *

 **(1)** Apparently a wizard had been found dangling from a very high window by one ankle and screaming incoherently. Nobody seriously tried to target Ponder Stibbons after that. Mustrum Ridcully had asked "Just for the look of the thing, Johanna, m'dear. You weren't around the University at any time last night, were you?" Johanna had assured him that she had been assisting her colleague Miss Band with a night edificeering lesson. Another Assassin and thirty students could testify to that. And the Guild School never vectors intermediate classes in Edificeering onto the University rooftops, as you know, Arch-Chancellor. The magical hazards make it too dangerous for us, and it is held to be an un-necessary risk to pupils. Ridcully had grinned, said "jolly good, m'dear", and signed off the report with an emphatic flourish. "Assault by person or persons un-known."

 **(2)** South African comic Casper de Vries does a routine about this. How Dutch and Flemish sound to somebody whose first language is Afrikaans and how quirky the European versions of a pretty much common language sound, when heard from Africa. OK, it's in Afrikaans, but listen carefully. Some of the humour is universal. The concept of "separated by a common language" is certainly in there.

 **(3)** Danie Smith-Rhodes, a man disinterested in politics and whose life had hitherto held little of interest to BOSS, had developed a fatter BOSS file after emigrating to Ankh-Morpork and marrying Heidi van Kruger, a woman who _did_ have a BOSS file. Danie had developed a passion for fifteen-a-side Llamedosian Rules Foot-and-Hand-the-Ball and _his_ moment of subversion and sedition had been the exing and contentious issue of whether people with black skins could pay the game as the equals of white people. The idea of the Springboeks side (a team unkindly referred to by the snarky as The All-Whites) playing against a team drawn from Black Howondalandians, for instance, with the danger that they might actually _lose_ the game, had been vetoed by BOSS as injurious to the entire philosophy of apartheid. Never mind the idea of the Bokkies actually _fielding_ a black player. Danie had lost patience and told BOSS to go and voetsaak itself. This was Ankh-Morpork. Different laws applied here. And to his mind, if a fellow was good enough to play, he _played._ On the field and one of the fifteen, he was a bro. Danie had pointed out that the Foggy Islands team had coloured players in it. We play them twice a season. if the Zulus want to put up a side, we play them _too._ You people can sort out the politics of it. We'll get on with the game. Liutnant Verkramp had quietly vowed to get Danie Smith-Rhodes. however long it took. The Smith-Rhodes family, without any undue fuss, was quietly spitting on its hands and getting ready for a fight. Watch this space for updates. _**  
**_

**(4)** That's if you disregarded the yard-long wooden ruler brandished by Sister Flagellata.

 **(5)** Godsmother Alice was teaching her how to use bows, and Mummy had been instructing Bekki in use of crossbows. Alice Band was pleased with Bekki's competence, but remarked that "she goes all to pieces when she has to loose at a human target. You know, the ones that have a human shape painted on them. Just can't do it. But show her the competition target with the rings on it. Outer, inner, bullseye. Really good scores. She's fitter than a lot of my students at the Guild School. So she _can_ do it. And do it _well._ She just seems to have a hang-up about firing arrows at _people._ Even a painted target of a person. That could be a serious drawback if she enrols at the School when she's eleven!" Johanna had seen the same when teaching Bekki to use a crossbow. She agreed that this was a thing her daughter should get over. She was just blowed as to _how_.

 **(6)** And, as he would happily discover in later life, many not-quite-as-respectable ladies. His mother was aware of this, and was already resigning herself to the idea that women would be _très susceptible_ to the charms of her sons. Which would, most assuredly, bring complications in its wake. She was wondering what to do about this. It was a situation that required thought. And forward planning, Better to be warned now.

 **(7)** Igors would respect the naming convention involved. Family tradition had it that there _must_ be a Johanna Smith-Rhodes in every generation of the Family and this distinction fell on the first girl to be born. If only at most two Johannas were alive at any one time this wasn't too big a problem. But Bekki had called a situation into being that had the power to get a little bit confusing, if it wasn't for the fact that every Johanna Smith-Rhodes knew perfectly well who _she_ was and who all the others were. The Igor/Igorina thing...

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future.**

 **I know. I wanted something "Phlegmish" in the way of children's stories that Annaliese could give to Bekki. And what could be more Belgian than Hergé's creation Tintin? Call him Cancan and give him a Discworld alternate, who preserves the essential Belgian-ness of it. Only... Hergé scripted the books in FRENCH and expressly not in Flemish. Damn. Any Flemish-Blgian cartoon characters out there I could use?**


	7. Apartheid

_**Strandpiel 7: Apartheid (Separation)**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.**_

 _ **We closed the last chapter on Bekki Smith-Rhodes Stibbons about to realise she would not be able to attend the Assassins' Guild School alongside her friends. This was due to an inconvenient attack of magical ability which triggered one of the Exemption Clauses insisted upon by Lord Vetinari. (1)**_

 _Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork._

Godsmother Irena smiled down tolerantly and understandingly at Bekki, who was stretched out face-down on her bed. Pyn the cat was curled up next to her and was contentedly asleep. Every so often Bekki reached out to give him a reassuring stroke **.(2)** Pyn purred like a steam train crossed with a bandsaw.

"Aren't you going to say it?" Irena asked.

"Do you think it would do any good?" Bekki replied, her face partly muffled by the pillow.

Irena considered this for a second.

"No." she admitted.

Bekki twanged slightly. It was there, certainly. The desire to throw back her head and howl at the world and scream "It's just not fair!" But she sensed it would get her precisely nowhere and just make her look like a silly whingeing little kid. So she wasn't going to say it. Even if it _wasn't_ fair.

"You can't go to the Assassins' School." Irena said. Bekki winced. She was going to be separated from Davvie. Davvie Bellamy had been there. Since always. They'd played together. They'd been to First School with Miss Susan as their teacher. They'd moved on to the Convent School together. They'd sorted out Parsifal Venturi together. Several times. And now at age eleven when they had to move on to Big School, they weren't going together. Davvie Bellamy was going to the Assassins' School. And _she wasn't_. It made her want to scream.

"Look at it this way." Godsmother Irena said, kindly. "Say you _had_ got into the Assassins' School. Do you think you'd be _happy_ there, _devyushka_? Something tells me you're not cut out to be an Assassin. And that's kind of the entire purpose of it. You're not a good fit for it. If your mother's honest, she knows that too."

Bekki grunted. Her Godsmother smiled slightly.

"And has it occurred to you Manni and Davvie have missed something, which is quite a great big important something? They're so happy to have been accepted, that it's not occurred to either of them that they're going to the School where their mothers are teachers. And half the adults they've met while they're growing up are teachers there. Like your mum, for instance."

Irena looked reflective for a moment.

" _Slava bogu,_ I wouldn't like to be in that position. They're going to be watched all the time, and everyone's going to expect gold stars for good behaviour and that they Set An Example. All the time. And the other kids are going to be suspicious and think they're getting an easier ride because they're related to teachers. You're better off out of it, _devyushka!"_

Bekki rolled onto her side and looked up at her godsmother. She hadn't considered that. She really hadn't.

"Good. I'm getting your attention." Irena said. Her wide friendly face smiled down at her. Bekki thought, as she always did, that her godsmother was pretty, but strangely pretty. Her face was different. It wasn't an Ankh-Morporkian face. It looked flatter. Her eyes were slightly slanted. Not in an Agatean way. But it suggested something Agatean, way back in her ancestry. (Irena had offhandedly said "Far Überwald. Zlobenia. Mouldavia. Where I'm from. It's a typical kulak face. I'm a kulak. I get the face. Nice of you to think it's pretty, though. Most people just say "handsome". " **(3))**

"Okay!" Irena said. "We've established that you can't be an Assassin. _Nichevo_. Can't be helped. The reason for your _not_ being able to go to the Assassins' School is that you've got magic. You can't be an Assassin with magic. Not allowed. And take it from me. Unless you find a way to do something _useful_ with that magic, it isn't just going to sit there and be patient. It's going to find its way out regardless."

Irena ticked the points off on her fingers.

"Despite your father being who is. And despite your adoptive grandfather being who he is. You can't go to the University and learn how to be a wizard, for the fundamental reason that you don't have a willy. It's that basic. I'm sure Mustrum Ridcully's been looking for loopholes to allow him to enrol a girl, but right now the other old men in the Faculty are all ganging up on him and saying things like "Remember what happened _last_ time? And we don't have the right plumbing for girl students!"

Irena smiled.

"So that only leaves one possibility, don't you think?"

Bekki sighed.

"I know. Witchcraft." she said, reluctantly. It didn't sound as exciting, cool or stylish as being an Assassin. Nowhere near.

Irena stood up. She had a look of deep satisfied contentment to her.

"Get some boots on." she said. "No time like the present to make a start."

"At least I get to learn to fly." Bekki said, looking for a silver lining. She hunted for matching footwear. Irena smiled, seemingly pleasantly.

"Flying? All in good time, _devyushka_. But right now, you are going to begin learning practical witchcraft. From the ground up."

They left the house together.

"Just taking her out for a couple of hours, Johanna. As agreed." Irena called to Bekki's mother. Johanna acknowledged her. They walked on in silence. Bekki felt slightly cheated. Surely she'd at least get to ride pillion on a broomstick or something? Not walking?

Irena broke the silence.

"By the way, I'm so glad you didn't do the " _It's not fair!_ " business in any way." she said, amiably. "Consider Julian and Ruth, for instance. Who right now have every reason to scream "It's not fair!" at the world. But they aren't. They're getting on with it. Which makes your little business _trivial_ by comparison."

"It's really sad." Bekki said.

"Maybe." her godsmother agreed. "But they had over ten years together. A lot of man-woman things never get to last that long. At least they had those ten years. Did I tell you I was there right at the start, when they first met? Your mother has a big streak of mischief in her, by the way. I suspect she did a bit of nudging to see what happened." **(4)**

Bekki heard the story of the Battle Of The Tobacco Farm, that had happened a year or two before she'd been born.

"My father decided that if he was going to get killed somewhere alongside my mother, he should at least actually be _married_ to her when he died." she said, slowly. "Kind of romantic, I suppose. And Julian met Ruth. Although it didn't, you know, get anywhere till they met again in Ankh-Morpork. And now they're separating."

"Or being separated." Irena said. "Big difference. Now let me talk to you about a _steading_ and what one is…"

* * *

Irena's steading began in a cellar room in Pseudopolis Yard, on the Isle of Gods. Bekki thought it seemed to be a really odd place to be a Witch. Then a second voice in her head said _That's the point. Witches and odd places go together. Where there's an odd place, you find a witch._

There also seemed to be an Understanding between Irena and some very senior policemen. Bekki realised she was going into the sort of parts of Pseudopolis Yard where only policemen went, and civilians didn't normally get access. But being seen with Irena made it all alright, somehow. People understood. What exactly they were understanding, Bekki wasn't sure about. But Captain Carrot had been really pleasant and had said something like "I see you've got your pupil, Sergeant Politek." Irena had said "It happens to all witches, Captain Carrot. Sooner or later."

"I hope you grow up into a very good witch, miss." Carrot had said to Bekki. Bekki realised this was somebody who _really_ respected witches. Getting the respect of people like Captain Carrot… maybe this being-a-witch did actually have a good side to it.

And then there was…

"Hey, _babiushka_!"

Hey, Igor!"

Irena explained that the Watch Igor did his sort of thing. She and the other Watch Witches did their sort of thing too. And that there was a lot of overlap in the middle. They worked with Igor a lot.

"This is our steading." she said. "All around you. Watchmen. Their families. Their kids. The big happy City Watch family. Which witch you get all depends who's not out on Pegasus flights or on Watch duty. But usually there's one of us on call. Me, Olga, Nottie. If we're all on duty, Mrs Proust helps out. It all seems to work."

"Your steading is the whole city?" Bekki asked.

Irena grinned. "No. Just the bits of it that have a connection with the City Watch. We're Watch Witches. And we go where we're needed and do what we have to. That's important."

There was a knock on the door that, if a knock could sound shifty and sidle, was a shifty sidle.

Irena sighed.

"You're helping with this one. There's nothing like jumping in at the deep end."

Then she called

"Come in, Nobby!"

Bekki watched as Nobby Nobbs came into the witches' consulting room. She tried not to let her mouth drop open in horror.

Irena gave him a slight smile.

"The usual problem, Nobby?"

"Yes, miss. Thanking you kindly, miss."

His eyes flickered over to Bekki.

"Errr…"

"My apprentice, Nobby. Trainee witch. Under instruction."

Nobby's eyes flickered with recognition.

"I got you now, miss! You're miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, aren't you? Your mum's Doctor Smith-Rhodes, the assassin, and your dad's Professor Stibbons…"

"Almost right, Nobby. Except that here, she's just Miss Smith-Rhodes."

Bekki must have looked questioning. Irena smiled.

"Not being disrespectful to your father, Bekki. He will understand. A witch always takes her mother's name. It's traditional."

Irena nodded. She contemplated the sight which was Nobby Wormsborough Nobbs, City Watch corporal. It was not a comforting sight. Irena patted her shoulder.

"And now, Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, witch in training. This is where you learn some fundamental and vital witch skills. Like how to lance boils. Get your shirt off, Nobby."

* * *

It had been a courtesy detail that when she got home later in the day, dessert had been boiled jam pudding with custard.

Bekki ate it anyway, but deliberately closed her eyes. The taste was still yummy. She tried to shut out what it might _look_ like.

She thought back to her afternoon and early evening. You just had to be, you know, objective. People got boils. They were painful and unsightly. You had to bring relief and healing and do it safely. That was witchcraft. You had to take a sterilised sharp edge and a cloth pad and… Bekki shuddered again. And then clean the area with surgical alcohol and apply a dressing.

After that, things hadn't been nearly so unspeakably bad. Captain Angua had asked about her hardpad. Feet, yes, but nice feet, well looked after. And the wife of Constable Hardiman had a teething baby. Bekki had seen here where she really could make a difference and had cuddled and rocked the little boy while Irena checked inside his mouth, showed Bekki what to look for, and had applied a soothing clove-based salve. Bekki suspected something more magical had applied, as the baby was quiet and sleeping at the end.

"Can't stop the teeth growing in." Irena had said, offhandedly, "But I could move the pain and the discomfort _somewhere else_. You'll learn how to do that, too."

And in between patients, Irena had had Bekki mixing and preparing salves and ointments. Bekki's shoulder still twinged. It was worse than swinging a sword. Some of those ointments had been resistant to being blended and stirred. She had learnt a new word in all its horribleness. _Viscous._ That which is a thick oily paste that resists being stirred and mixed.

And this would be her life from now on, weekends and a couple of evenings a week. Learning how to be a witch. Bekki sighed.

"Mum?" she asked. She was trying to get out of calling her Mummy. She was eleven now. _Mummy_ was so little baby-girl.

Johanna tried not to be upset about the _Mum_ thing. She accepted her oldest daughter was, well, getting older. But still… it would have been _nice_ if she could still be Mummy. At least for a little longer.

"Bekki?" she asked.

"Auntie Emmie was saying. Years ago, when you did a march in the wilderness. You treated the blisters on her feet. And that it felt so much better afterwards. Would you show me how you do blisters?"

Johanna smiled.

"Of course, Bekki. But – not a thing to talk about over dinner, hmm? Come and see me afterwards. I'm thinking this is something you'll need to know about for your… well, for the work Irena's teaching you."

"Thanks, mummy…mum."

Bekki got her lessons in foot care from her mother. Johanna explained, at length, that for people who have to move and be on their feet and cover up to forty miles a day on foot, often in the wilds a long way away from towns, care of the feet is _essential_. Lose your feet and you are _dead_. And these are all the things that can go wrong…

She applied herself diligently, and practiced the lessons her mother was teaching her on the feet of Watchmen. Whose job kept them on their feet for long hours of every day. She reasoned that this was a very useful transferable skill she could apply, as student witch in the Watch steading. The other three witches quietly approved of this. Bekki was dealing with a watchman with blisters one evening, and had got to the point where she was immersing his feet in the ice-cold footbath, with lots of ice, to get the swelling down. It was one of her mother's seemingly brutal remedies for blistered feet. Auntie Emmie had been heartfelt in describing it and had shuddered at a bad memory.

The voice behind her had a harsh gravelly tone. It was accompanied by cigar smoke.

"When you're done here with Constable Flitley, young lady. I was wondering if you might take a look at _my_ feet? No rush. When you're done with Flitley."

"Okay." Bekki said, without looking up. "Just sit down and put that cigarette out, would you, this _is_ a no-smoking area!"

She wondered why Olga Romanoff gasped and looked alarmed for a second. Then she heard the new Watchman laugh appreciatively.

"Alright. Sorry. This is _your_ place. Your rules apply." She heard a cigar being stubbed out. The smell faded, even if it lingered. At least it wasn't being added to. Then a little later, she treated the feet of Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch. It was, as Sam Vimes said later, an interesting experience for both of them. For instance, being told off by a girl of nearly twelve, who was making it clear _she_ was the one in charge. He didn't get that sort of thing very often. And anyway, he'd heard on the Watch grapevine that the student witch who was being trained up down in the infirmary was an absolute magician with feet. People were talking about her.

"They're not wrong, too." Vimes remarked. "Besides, your mother was one of my Specials for a long time. Did well, too. Sorry to lose her when she started a family. Then, in a roundabout way, I get one of the family she started as part of the Watch. Sort of. You were worth meeting."

Vimes had grinned, thanked her for the attention to his feet, remarked that feet were the bane of a Watchman's life, or one of them, had said that the incidence of sick leave due to foot problems had dropped quite a bit in the last couple of months, and patted her shoulder.

"Well done, miss." he had said, and moved on. Bekki noted that he very carefully did not light a cigar till he was out of the treatment room.

Julian Smith-Rhodes was usually a pleasant, optimistic, and generally happy man. It was nice to be around him. Ruth N'Kweze was a pleasant and well disposed woman with a _wicked_ sense of humour.

But not tonight. Both seemed unhappy, even miserable and sad. Bekki longed to hug them both and tell them how much she loved them.

Mummy was quiet and thoughtful. Her father looked uncertain as if he didn't quite know what to do. Uncle Danie had patted Julian on the shoulder and said, in three words that expressed the depth of his feelings, "Bad break, bro." Auntie Heidi was standing with Ruth. Two women who'd started together at the age of eleven at the Assassins' Guild School and whose lives in possibly twenty years since had brought them closer together. Old friends who had, in defiance of national and racial reality, bonded.

"I have to tell myself it's not _that_ bad." Ruth said. "I've had the summons. Father wants me Home. He thinks it's high time the Paramount Crown Princess accepts the burden of duty, and returns to the Empire to assume her ceremonial duties."

"And you do not refuse your father." Julian said. "He wants you Home. You _go_."

"And mine's only the Paramount King of the Zulu Empire." Ruth said. "Tyrant and ruler. Although not a despot. Just a man who rules by the divine authority of the Gods. _Your_ father, however, is Charles Smith-Rhodes."

Julian winced.

"Who wants me home to assume more of the duties of Family." Julian said. "And we both know what _that_ means." He sounded sorrowful. Claude the butler stepped forward to refill his glass. "Father isn't unreasonable. He accepts it's got to be somebody I actually _like_ and can stay married to. He's offered me a choice of Chloe de Beers, Geneveive Rothschild, or Berenice Beit. He's frankly said the choice is mine, as marriage into _any_ one of these families will have advantages. But in his opinion, it's high time I stopped dithering and contracted a suitable marriage. Nice girls. Met them all. They're okay. But…"

Ruth took his hand. There was a kind of longingness about it.

"Father's setting up introductions to people. Indunas in his circle. Who have their own impis and are loyal to the Paramount Throne. As far as he's concerned, getting a few spare daughters married off to the right men will strengthen the Throne. The husbands will know who's given them the social advancement, and they'll be more inclined to be loyal."

Ruth sighed.

"I've met some of them. They aren't _bad_ guys. And at least one of them I could… well, you know, shape him up. It's not as if I'm not being offered a choice, either."

"Don't you think it's odd that we both get the ultimatum in the same few days?" Julian mused. It almost feels co-ordinated, somehow."

Ruth snorted slightly.

"That presumes your father and mine have somehow spoken to each other as responsible adults who hold each other in mutual esteem, agreed it's time to put a stop to it, and get their respective wayward children called Home to be married to somebody more suitable." She said. "I mean. Closed border. State of continual near-war. No diplomatic channels. BOSS on one side and the College of Witchfinders on the other, charged with ensuring there are no points of contact between our countries and to root out espionage…no, can't see how your father or mine pulled _that_ one."

Julian regarded her.

"You're being ironic again, aren't you?"

"What do you think? Hellfire. I'm thirty-one years old. I've spent twenty of those years in Ankh-Morpork. I love it here. Now I've got to go Home and learn how to be a Zulu again. _Without you_."

It was a painful evening. Bekki felt agonies inside for two people she loved. They were hurting, and she couldn't do anything about the hurt.

And then Ruth and Julian were gone. There had been farewell parties for both as they left the Central Continent to return to Howondaland. Ruth's teaching position at the Guild School was taken over by a new teaching assistant. Julian accepted that he was being rotated back to the Bureau of Foreign Affairs in the national capital. Right in the heart of things, and able to attend a lot of Society dinners and dances, where eligible women could be courted.

Johanna, after a while, got a letter from Howondaland to say the Paramount Crown Princess was formally married to a prominent General of the impis, a man high in the trust of the Paramount King and a rising star. A little later, the engagement of Mr Julian Smith-Rhodes to Miss Chloe de Beers was announced. The DeBeers were a prominent and very rich family with serious interests in gold and diamond mining.

"Met one of them once. He was a complete idiot." **(5)** Johanna said, over breakfast. "Unpleasant, arrogant and stupid. Hope his sister is nicer, and has a working brain in her head."

* * *

The question of where Rebecka would now continue her formal education after the age of eleven was also being discussed. Her sister Famke was being annoying, in a seven-year-old sort of way, loudly proclaiming that she couldn't wait to get away from all those soppy nuns at Seven-Handed-Sek's and move up to the Assassins' School, where she could start learning _proper_ things. Bekki gritted her teeth, and very pointedly spent time with her baby sister Ruth, a girl who was quiet and timid where Famke was brash and outgoing.

Bekki also realised that, as a "non-domiciled citizen" of Rimwards Howondaland, there were extra courses she'd have to do. Mum had said "Just put up with it and give them the answers they want to hear. _Please_."

It was held that just because people were being brought up overseas, they were not exempt from certain things. In fact, it made it _more_ vital they were taught Civics and Citizenship, so they knew what it was to be a Citizen. What it meant.

Students of Rimwards Howondalandian nationality were brought together from all the schools in the general Ankh-Morporkian area for teaching convenience, and taught the Civics course together, through the Embassy. Bekki accepted that her mother felt obliged to put up two girls, students at the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies, for the week. The QAYL girls talked about their school in tones ranging from world-weary condescension, through frustration with the restrictions imposed on them, to finally admitting that they quite liked the place somehow. Don't ask us _why_.

After a while, Bekki suspected a sales pitch was going on.

Diana, the older QA girl, shuffled her feet embarrassedly.

"Well. Err. Your mother asked us to talk about the School with you. So that you have an idea. She said not to tell you. But, err, they're thinking of sending you there. They wanted you to meet girls who are there. To help you make a decision. Err…"

Bekki felt annoyed.

She threw herself, with tooth-gritting determination, into the Civics course. People didn't normally do it at eleven. But her mother and father accepted that Bekki was bright, intellectually capable, was way ahead of her peers in most subjects at school, probably something she got from Ponder, and most crucially, the sooner she got this nonsense out of the way, the better. It was _mandatory_.

Bekki therefore spent a week listening to what she suspected was a one-sided view of Howondalandian history and culture, how her great nation had come to be, how its legal systems were adapted from the best features of Sto Kerrigian and Ankh-Morporkian jurisprudence, why the white race was superior and how the Gods had called white people to be stewards and guardians of Howondaland, and therefore why apartheid was a right and proper thing for our nation in this stage of its development. That it was right and proper there should be a White Howondaland and how the blood of the Volk should not be diluted by mingling it with the blood of _lesser peoples_. She compared this, inside, to what she'd seen of people like Ruth N'Kweze, Claude, Eve, Blessing and Dorothea, and concluded that anyone calling _those_ black people inferior and lesser was an idiot.

She observed that the person giving this lecture on the vital need for a White Howondaland was Liutnant Verkramp of BOSS. An idiot. And creepy. And obnoxious. She also noted that Auntie Heidi, who she knew here she had to address respectfully as Mevrou Smith-Rhodes, was sitting a little way apart from Verkramp, her legs crossed and her arms folded, looking distant and unreadable. Auntie Heidi had lectured them in Culture and Literature and had made the dull, dry, syllabus almost _interesting_. But the apartheid stuff she was leaving to Verkramp, Bekki noticed.

"So what did you learn today?" her mother asked, when Bekki returned home. It sounded carefully neutral. Bekki considered and thought before answering.

"That one day, an educated black middle class may arise and take its rightful place in the government of our society." she said. "But that day is not today and may not be even tomorrow. Until the day comes, white people should uncomplainingly take up the burden of leadership and decide for all, treating the blacks with the appropriate degree of firm kindly respect, recognising they are incapable of governing themselves. Hence _apartheid_. Separation."

Bekki was aware of everyone around the table watching her. They included Diana and Lydia, the two guest students from the QACL. She was also aware that Claude, Eve and Blessing were looking at her. With silent, closed in faces.

Bekki knew she had a good memory. She'd quoted Verkramp pretty much verbatim. The grey grim horror of hearing a justification for apartheid had stuck in her head. She couldn't shift it.

"Mum. Just this once, would you allow me to swear? I think it's all total _kak. Dreckscheiss_!"

Her mother looked astonished for a moment, then burst out laughing. Diana and Lydia, who had both been unflattering about Verkramp on the way out, looked shocked for an instant. Then they too laughed.

" Wellnow." Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons remarked. "It appears we have _somebody else_ here who is politically incorrect. And I'm proud of you."

Johanna scrutinised her daughter for a long moment.

"Just remember to tell them what they want to hear and read in the written tests."

She turned to Lydia and Diana.

"Which goes for you two also."

" _Ja, mevrou Doktor!"_ the two guests chorused.

* * *

Liutnant Verkramp staked restlessly around the upper floors of the Embassy. There was something wrong here, he could feel it. He prided himself on knowing how to read an atmosphere. Something subversive was happening. Something inimical to the interests of White Howondaland. A threat. As an officer of BOSS, he was trained to recognise threats. He knew he must be eternally vigilant for threats to White Howondaland. He was trained for it. It was his vocation. A sacred duty to the Staadt.

But what was it? He walked on, feeling agitated and not knowing why. A sense of low-level paranoia was his default state. Not physically prepossessing, small thin and weedy, with a receding chin and a hairline receding almost as fast, with a bulging prominent Adam's apple and a thin reedy voice, Verkramp was a poor advertisement for the superiority of the white race in Howondaland. Possibly because of this, he pursued perceived sedition with the tenacity of a terrier after rats. He was renowned for it.

He had done his job so well that despite nearly twenty-five years of devoted selfless service to his nation, he was still only a Liutnant. This rankled. **(6)**

But here he was in a key posting and represented his nation's spying and intelligence services. That was compensation…

Verkramp, deeply troubled, stalked on. And then he heard it, distantly. A bleck voice. Singing that dangerous revolutionary anthem that kept surfacing among the blecks, despite the heaviest possible sanctions. He raced towards the sound, unhityching his sjaemboek whip, hoping to make an arrest and give the insolent bleck something to think about.

 _Nkosi sikelel' iWondala, Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo…_

It was a bleck voice. It had to be. No white person would sing that dangerous revolutionary nonsense. This had to be stopped, and stopped now…

But he found no blecks. That puzzled him. The only person in sight was the red-haired child, a relative of the Ambassador, who had the privilege of using the Embassy library to study for her Civics exam. She was diligently and conscientiously bent over a book, occasionally pausing to take notes. Verkramp smiled. The girl looked up and greeted him, sounding pleased to see him.

"Mister Lieutenant Verkramp?" she asked. "I wonder if you could help me. These law books are hard reading. I'm trying to get it into my head as to the difference between grand apartheid and petty apartheid, as they're defined in law. Can you help?"

Flattered, Verkramp forgot about seditious blacks and helped the girl with her homework. _Such a clever girl_ , he thought. _And loyal. It would serve Doctor Smith-Rhodes right if her daughter turns out to be a good citizen who believes in the rightness of what we do…_

Bekki thanked him and went back to her books. She mentioned she'd heard a native song some minutes ago, Mister Lieutenant, but to be honest she hadn't paid much attention. She thought it was _nice_ , the way the servants sing as they work. It shows how happy they are, don't you agree?

"Some songs are dangerous, meisie Smith-Rhodes." he said, politely. "Tell me if you see or hear a servant singing that same song. I would wish to know."

Verkramp resumed his patrol, feeling a warmer glow and an almost avuncular liking for Bekki. A clever, conscientious, young girl.

And then he heard it again. A woman's voice.

 _Yizwa imithandazo yethu, Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo!_

He dashed back, sjaemboek in hand. But there was nothing there except the red-haired girl bent over her books. This time Bekki confirmed she'd heard the song again, yes, and it sounded like it was coming from over there somewhere.. is it serious, mister Lieutenant? Does this mean they are likely to rise and slaughter us all in our beds?

Verkramp felt oddly protective to the girl, who looked innocently concerned. He drew himself up to his full height and his adam's apple puffed out in a self-important way. You had to protect the precious women and children of the Volk, didn't you? It was a sacred duty.

"Not if I can help it." he said. The girl thanked him fulsomely. Then she asked him about the categories the Bureau of State Security used to classify people by race. Could he clarify them for her?

Flattered, Verkramp said there was no need to go into things in _that_ much detail for her citizenship exam. But since she'd asked…

 _She may even consider joining BOSS, if handled correctly. That would truly delight her subversive mother. And her family. Imagine! A Smith-Rhodes in the BOSS!_

Verkramp was impressed by her intelligence and her quick grasp of things. He resumed his patrol. He still wanted to get that bloody bleck…

This time he ran into the Ambassador, who was touring his building. He quickly reported a Situation. Mr van der Graaf heard him out, looking sceptical as the damned man always did when listening to a report from his BOSS chief.

Then both of them heard the black woman's voice…

 _Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso, O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,  
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso._

 _Setjhaba sa Howondaland!_

They investigated together this time. But still all that was there was the diligent and conscientious red-haired girl bent over her books. She warmly greeted her Uncle Pieter.

"Leave me alone with my niece, Liutnant Verkramp? _Dankie_. And don't let this get out of proportion. Be subtle. Allow the blacks a _small_ triumph and a feeling they've got one over on the baases. That should be enough and prevent them looking for _big_ triumphs. Which may not be so relatively harmless. You understand me? Oh – and put that damn whip away. You know my opinions on that sort of thing. _Dankie_."

The Ambassador greeted his niece. Really his great-niece, but the distinctions got blurred in everyday use.

"It's good to see you working so hard and diligently, Rebecka!" he said, loudly. He waited for Verkramp to slink away, then came to stand behind her.

"Oh, yes. The Racial Separation Acts and Classifications." he remarked. "Strict. But necessary."

Then he leant down and spoke softly in her ear.

"Rebecka. _Please_ try and refrain from tormenting Liutnant Verkramp." he advised her. "I find the man a trial at the best of times. I do not need a niece, who shares her mother's peculiar sense of humour, who drives him _completely_ demented. Please refrain. Thank you. I am retiring from this position soon and I do not want my successor to inherit a BOSS officer who is _completely_ insane. Part—way and predictably mad I can cope with. You have a good singing voice, by the way. Impressive."

"Thank you, Uncle Pieter." Bekki said, politely.

 _To be continued…_

* * *

 **(1)** The Assassins' Guild School, in the opinion of Lord Vetinari, _should_ be as inclusive an educational establishment as possible. It _should_ reach out to sections of the community who it had never previously considered as potential Assassins. Vetinari had pointed out that he had got some superb and sterling Dark Clerks that way. All that mattered – most of the time – was that the pupil had an aptitude for what the school could teach, had clearly demonstrated skills and potential, and was not likely to pose preventable problems later in life. Preventable problems, in Vetinari's mind, encompassed things like psychopathic or sociopathic disorders. It also encompassed Undead. Imagine, for instance, a demonstrably unkillable Zombie Assassin? Or a vampire like de Magpyr, whose intrinsic unpleasantness was compounded by a Guild training? It covered werecreatures. The name of Wolfgang von Überwald was mentioned at this point. Lord Downey accepted this. And the last exemption clause was magic users. Vetinari felt strongly that a dual-qualified Witch or Wizard Assassin would present problems. He invited Lord Downey to consider, for instance, the nature of an Assassin whose throwing knives and arrows would hit _every time_ , unerringly guided by magic. Potential students were now routinely screened for magic and any Undead traits before final acceptance. There'd been the embarrassing business with Angela Carter of Scorpion House, a girl who had developed late-onset lycanthropy. Vetinari had noted that there was now _one_ werewolf out there who'd received a few years of Assassin training. He trusted there would never be a second. Professor Ponder Stibbons, a Wizard married to an Assassin, and who therefore had an understanding of what was needed, had devised the necessary screening tests. It made him feel both professionally vindicated, and a complete shit, in that one of the potential Assassin students thus screened out was his own oldest daughter.

 **(2)** Pyn didn't need any reassurance. Bekki, on the other hand, did.

 **(3)** Irena and Olga are witches from an exotic faraway place which has a Russian/Slavonic vibe about it. Funny, I'd never thought much about how two "Russian" girls in Ankh-Morpork might look and how they might physically stand out. Even if they lose a lot of their accent when they speak Morporkian and only give it away when they are moved to swear and cuss in "Russian". Or call Bekki " _devyushka_ ". They'd still look Slavonic. Trying to describe a Russian sort of face here.

 **(4)** go to my story _**Bungle In The Jungle**_ , in which Ruth and Julian embark on a most unwise romance. With a little help from others.

 **(5)** See my tale _**Murder Most 'Orrible**_.

 **(6)** There were plans to accelerate him to Major in the last six months or so of his service, as a face-saving thing. The BOSS hierarchy _was_ capable of _some_ human touches. Admittedly he'd also be shunted to some distant backwater to tally forms or something, somewhere where Major Verkramp would be hard-put to do any damage as he – and his superiors - counted down the days till retirement.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future.**


	8. Boerkryger

_**Strandpiel 8: die Boerekryger**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

 _ **We closed the last chapter on Bekki Smith-Rhodes Stibbons taking her first formal steps into witchcraft and learning how she too can fight back against the oppressive hand of a secret police force. We are now a year or so further on.**_

 _Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork._

Bekki had put her foot down about the idea of being sent to the Quirm Academy For Young Ladies as a boarder. She wasn't usually one to defy her parents. But looking her mother full in the eye and saying "No" had been a huge, huge, effort.

Her father had winced. Even her sister Famke had fallen silent and was intently watching to see what happened next. Her sister Ruth, dear shy quiet little Ruth, had whimpered and ran to Annaliese for comfort. Even the cats had scarpered.

Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons glared at her oldest daughter. She did not seem pleased. At all.

" _No_." Johanna said, curtly. "Explain."

Then her mother unbent. Slightly.

"You're still upset that you can't go to the Assassins' School, aren't you?" she asked, in a more conciliatory – well, _a less confrontational_ – voice.

Bekki sighed. She couldn't deny that. It was true. Anywhere else seemed like a lesser deal, after spending so long anticipating and looking forward to the Guild School, and the thrilling experience it promised.

"Listen, Rebecka. I do not want a battle of wills with you." Johanna said. "I would win, naturally. But you'd end up hating and resenting me for a long time afterwards. I do not wish that. So tell me exactly why you do not wish to be educated in Quirm. I will listen."

Ponder Stibbons relaxed. It wasn't going to be a Klatchian stand-off after all. The idea of his wife locking horns with equally strong-willed and stubborn daughters was something he dreaded. Especially with those difficult teenage years looming ahead. More battle-experienced fathers had warned him about teenage girls. In the opinion of a fellow father, the moment they turn eleven, pack them off to a boarding school, _pronto_ , so all the teenage sulks and tantrums happen _somewhere else_ and the potential for fights with their mothers is minimised. It's the only way, Ponder.

"I went to a boarding school myself." Johanna said. "As did my two sisters. Well, your Aunt Agnetha attended the same school as me, at least. Later, your Aunt Mariella went to the… she went elsewhere. Anyway. It was necessary. A population widely scattered over a large area. The children had to be sent away to school. Your grandparents wanted us away from the border area as things were unstable. There had been Zulu attacks. So we were sent inland."

Johanna smiled slightly.

"As it happened, I very nearly hated it." she said, frankly. "So do not assume I am being unfeeling and cold here. I may understand you better than you realise."

"Tell me about your school, mum." Bekki said, relieved that the fight was ceasing to be a fight and they were actually _talking_ to each other. She dreaded the alternative.

Johanna smiled slightly and described the Hendricka van Zyl Academy For Young Boer Ladies. Bekki thought it sounded like everything dreadful she'd heard about the Quirm Academy and the dotty old ladies who ran it. Only with a Vondalaans accent.

"I was the frightening hard case from the border country." her mother said, drily. "The one who had already fought the Zulus at the age of eleven. I had a reputation. I was not troubled by bullies. I also took the part of a girl who was being bullied. Meaner girls could not stand that she was so blonde and very, very, pretty. After I intervened, she was also not troubled again by bullies. Katerina became my friend. I liked her. I still do. She kept telling me I was too angry, and I should learn to laugh more and be less hostile."

"Mum. Are we talking here about Lady Katerina? The wife of the new Ambassador?"

"Ja. The same one."

Her mother smiled.

"Uncle Pieter deserves his retirement. As does Aunt Friejda. It was pleasant to hear the new Ambassador is married to an old friend of mine. This makes things interesting, and means we can maintain a close association with the Embassy."

Johanna smiled again.

"The Hendricka van Zyl was by no means a _bad_ school." she said. "I just found it difficult to adjust. To accept the restrictions. Perhaps you feel the same way about Quirm?"

"I realised I don't want to board, mum." Bekki said, frankly. "I don't want to be away from the family. You. Dad. Ruth. Annaliese. Even Famke."

Her mother nodded, understanding. She took her daughter's hand.

"And besides, mum, send me away to a boarding school and I'll keep running away. Coming back. You'd have to send me in chains."

This time Johanna laughed.

"Alright!" she said. "But you still have to go _somewhere_ , Rebecka."

Ponder Stibbons made a suggestion.

"Would your old school in Howondaland take her, Johanna? She'd be hard put to run back home from a few thousand miles and an ocean away. And she'd have her family over there to go to, in the holidays."

"Dad!" Bekki protested. It sounded awful.

"That is not a bad idea, Ponder. Thank you." Johanna said. She looked as if she were considering the idea. _Seriously_ considering it. Bekki felt cold inside. It wasn't as if she didn't like her family in Howondaland. Even loved them. But it still felt like exile.

"After all, the family keep sending people here, and expecting I should automatically take them in, and look after them." she mused. "Three or four so far. It's time _they_ should take somebody _I_ send to _them_. Just as uncomplainingly, and to be just as prepared to foot all the bills. The idea has merit."

Bekki found herself thinking quickly.

"Mum. Dad. Wouldn't that mean I'd have to give up learning how to be a witch?" she asked, summoning up a last-ditch argument. "There'd be nobody there to teach me."

This was agreed to be a consideration.

Then Johanna appeared to have a very good idea. As if it had just occurred to her.

"I know. You carry on living here. But you go to the upper school at Seven-Handed Sek's. Simply stay where you are. In this way you get an education, you carry on living at home, and you may carry on your informal learning with Irena and Mrs Proust and the others. To keep your options open. Is this acceptable? Good. we are decided."

Bekki felt relief. It could have been so much worse.

And privately later, Johanna and Ponder embraced and kissed. She complimented her husband on having, under the pretence of being helpful, suggested an alternative that Bekki had found so horrible that she'd accepted the solution offered, without further argument.

"Well, you know, Johanna. What the Watch calls good cop, bad cop. It works more often than you think." he said modestly.

"A parenting skill." his wife agreed.

* * *

And life carried on. Bekki and her friends donned their respective school uniforms every day and went to their assigned schools. Bekki and her friend Davvie travelled into the city together. They agreed how exactly alike their respective uniforms were. The silly, silly, indescribably naff blonkett hat, which they suspected was there out of a sadistic desire to make the wearer look like an utter pranny. The baggy blouse they were expected to grow into. The shapeless gymslip skirt with its pinafore front, a pleated dress skirt ending approximately in the region of the ankles. It was the same cut and style, except that Davvie's school blouse was black and Bekki's was white. The blonkett hat was black for Assassins, raspberry-red for Sek's. As Davvie remarked, it didn't go well at all with red hair and made Bekki look like an exotic ice-cream.

And both were envious of Assassin schoolboys, whose clothing, even at eleven or twelve, was exquisitely cut and tailored. Emmanuel-Martin de Lapoignard, a boarder, looked incredibly good in his uniform.

"It's as if they want to rub it in." Davvie said. "You girls are only here on sufferance, so you might as well be wearing old potato sacks."

Bekki agreed.

"Mum says there's a point of view that says it's not natural for girls to have any sort of education at all." she remarked. "But she thinks that's a lot of _poepiekack_."

"Poppycock?" Davvie said. "That's a mild word, for your mum."

Bekki grinned.

"Not in Vondalaans. Or in Kerrigian. You know when you get the runs and things get unpleasant in the toilet department? That's _poepiekack."_

Davvie considered this.

"Yuk." she said.

"Yuk indeed. Like the time we got Parsifal Venturi after he'd been behaving like a little horror. _Again_. Remember?"

Davvie grinned. That had been her idea. Bekki had helped.

"Parsifal's a first year student with us. Worse luck. They've put him in Mrs Beddowes' house. Where Manni is?"

"Oh. Bad luck for Manni. Still, he'll manage. How's Mum as a teacher?"

Davvie pulled a face.

"Strict. But fair. _Nobody_ messes around in Doctor Smith-Rhodes' classes. You see a different side to them when you see them as your teachers. Even my mum."

Bekki made understanding noises. Nuns didn't have children, as a rule. It was, for nuns, a pretty basic Rule. So there was no danger of kids in _her_ school ending up with their mother as a teacher. Well. You had Mother. Who was the Headmistress, and sort of everybody's mother and nobody's. But that was different.

Bekki and Davvie parted company at Filigree Street. There were still a couple of stops on the omnibus before Bekki got to Seven-Handed Sek's. She sympathised with Davvie for having to live in close association with the abominable Parsifal Venturi. And Manni, who had to share an actual dorm with him. At least her school was girls-only. She thought back a few years…

Bekki, aged around eight, knew they were in trouble when she and Davvie were brought into the room where their respective parents were waiting. Mum and Davvie's mum looked like judges presiding over a death sentence. Their fathers stood off to one side. Bekki reflected that Davvie's daddy ran a prison and was used to dealing with criminals. He was still in his prison officer's uniform and looked as if he'd be happy to lead them both off to a cell once judgement was pronounced. It wasn't a comforting thought.

Mum and Mrs Bellamy shared a look and a nod.

Bekki noted that Davinia Bellamy, normally the most cuddly, warm and mumsy person she knew, looked anything but, right at that moment. In fact, she seemed utterly frightening. And her own mother was tight-lipped and, she noted, angry. _Fuming,_ in fact. That was not comfortable. At all. And Davinia Bellamy was being silent. Appraising them.

"I'm not going to mess around." Davinia said, eventually. "I've got, in fact, a pretty good idea what happened. So right now, I'd really appreciate it if you both, in your own words, explained exactly what happened with Parsifal Venturi. Let me tell you right now that his parents are very angry and weren't shy about explaining to us about how angry they are. So in the interests of sharing it about a bit, we're now talking to _you_. So who'd like to begin? Davinia?"

Bekki's mother nodded, emphatically, and glared at them.

Davvie cleared her throat nervously, and began…

* * *

Parsifal had been his usual self. In fact, a loud, braying, obnoxious, son of the nobility. Neither Davvie nor Bekki liked him very much. They'd been playing out on the Tump and their group had run into Parsifal's group, who'd tried to take things over in their usual obnoxious aristocratic way.

Bekki and Davvie had been out a lot with Davvie's mother, who had been passing on her knowledge of plants and green growing things to the girls. Bekki had learnt a lot about plants, that they weren't just green things with one end in the ground and the other end in the sky. It would be useful knowledge to a burgeoning Witch, in fact. Davvie had learnt quickly too, including her mother's warnings about "don't touch _that_ one!" and helpful, very detailed, descriptions as to what exactly That One did and why you didn't go anywhere near it. This had involved learning that there were _far_ worse things out there than nettles. Davvie's mother taught a rather specialised and Assassin-relevant version of botany at the Guild School.

After enduring Parsifal's braying and self-unaware company for an hour, the girls had nodded meaningfully at each other.

Then Davvie had deliberately thrown her ball into a certain patch of growing green stuff, and pretended to make ineffectual attempts to get it out again. She had very carefully avoided touching any of the green.

"I'd _love_ it if you got my ball back for me, Parsifal.." she had pleaded, appealing to his vanity. Bekki had watched as Parsifal, loudly proclaiming how _useless_ girls were, had waded into the green, heedless of scratches, to retrieve the ball for her. Davvie had thanked and praised him and he had basked in warm glowing smugness. He had not noticed her carefully wiping the ball clean on a fold of her dress.

And, half an hour later, the symptoms had set in…

* * *

"Croton oil poisoning." Davinia had said. "The sap of the croton plant. No permanent effects, no long-term damage, but externally it causes a horrible, disfiguring, painful skin rash. And taken internally, it is a _very_ powerful emetic. Which acts very quickly."

She looked disapprovingly at the two girls over the top of her glasses.

"I seem to remember I pointed this out to both of you when I took you on a walk the other week. Well, at least you learn quickly. You know what a clump of croton oil plants looks like. That much is obvious."

"Lord Venturi is pretty annoyed." Bekki's mother pointed out. "And he isn't _completely_ stupid. He knows whose daughters you are. And let me tell you. He is hopping mad."

And Bekki suddenly sensed that both their mothers were being as stern as they could be, to cover up the fact that they really wanted to burst out laughing.

"Peter?" Davvie's mother invited him. Peter Bellamy, her father, stepped forward.

"I've been talking about this with your mothers." he said. "We think it's time for a Take Your Daughters To Work Day…"

The Tanty Prison was a grim, grey, frightening place. Bekki realised prisons are not meant to be nice. Not at all. But still…

Davvie was quiet. She knew her daddy worked here. Was quite high up in the place, in fact. But she'd never actually been inside it. And it was scary.

Mr Bellamy led them through the stark intimidating corridors of the prison. Other people, prison officers, and convicts wearing red armbands, greeted him respectfully. A lot of them seemed to be aware of a secret the girls were not aware of.

"New inmates, Mr Bellamy?" a junior officer asked, with a wink.

"Dangerous criminals." Davvie's dad agreed. "Assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to cause actual bodily harm, administering a noxious substance, and one count each of assault. The little horrors."

The junior officer shook his head and tutted.

"They look so _innocent,_ too. As if butter wouldn't melt. The worst sort, Mr Bellamy!"

"Just finding a cell for them now." Davvie's dad said. "Women's wing, I think. Got to observe the rules."

He led them through a series of doors, that swung shut and were locked behind him. Bekki and Davvie found themselves in a different part of the prison. Women of various ages looked at them curiously and with sympathy from the inside of cells.

"They're a bit _young_ , Mr Bellamy?" one asked.

"They've still misbehaved, though." he replied, selecting a cell. He unlocked the door.

"In here." he said. Then he smiled pleasantly at the girls.

"It's like this." he said. "Lord Venturi shouted at your mothers about what you did to his son. That annoyed your mothers. So they came and shouted at me. That sort of spoilt my evening. Now it's _your_ turn. I'll come back for you both later. When I remember. For now, listen to your cellmate and what she's got to teach you. That's all, see you both later."

"Hey, you two."

The girl who was lying full-length on the cell bunk smiled pleasantly at them. She looked perfectly at home here. Bekki recognised her. She'd been introduced, very carefully, and Bekki suspected without telling everything, as a _very special friend_ of her Godsmother Alice. Suddenly she knew she'd be safe.

"Come over here, you two criminals. Talk to me!"

Bekki smiled at the memory. It hadn't been funny at the time. Peter Bellamy had rescued them later and he'd even apologised. But apparently Lord Venturi was so powerful and had so much influence that not even Bekki's mother could ignore him. So _something_ had needed to be seen to be done. By way of visible punishment.

"Actually, Bekki, it was your mother who came up with the idea." he said. "Lock you both in a cell at the Tanty for an afternoon, and let you stew."

Bekki accepted this. She wasn't surprised.

"And, well, Miss Gibbet was doing her annual fortnight inside. Friend of your mothers. She was the ideal cellie for you both. Somebody who could explain why prison life isn't a bundle of laughs and why you should, if you have any sense, stay out of trouble. A good life lesson."

Steffi Gibbet had explained that as a Thieves' Guild member, she _had_ to do an annual fortnight in prison. Just to keep her trade skills up. It was expected. She'd been really good company in the cell. She'd even shown the girls how to pick the cell lock.

"Why don't you escape?" Bekki had asked. Steffi had shrugged.

"No point. Nowhere to go to, and anyway I've got to do this for a fortnight every year to keep up my Class One Thief status. May as well get it out of the way, and tick the right box on my record. Mr Bellamy knows I've got a lockpick. He's happy about that, and pretends I don't have one. So long as I don't lend it to anyone who _does_ want to escape. Part of the game, really."

Steffi had also explained to them what it _really_ meant to do time in the Tanty. When people were _not_ playing games and trying to shock you straight. Davvie had gasped and realised exactly how much her father, very carefully, was not telling her about the job he did every day. It was valuable information. A lesson.

When they got out, both girls tried, very conscientiously, to Be Good. It was far preferable to the alternative.

* * *

The Upper School at Seven-Handed Sek's meant doing more formal lessons to a standard that meant she could pass exams. Bekki had no problem with this. Most academic subjects didn't really stretch her too much. Both her parents had higher academic degrees, a Professor and a Doctor, and she'd inherited intellect from both of them. So she could do most subjects to the desired standard without thinking very much about it. Homework was a breeze. She skipped through it most nights to get a necessary chore out of the way.

Then she got Miss Lonsdale-Rust as her History teacher. Miss Lonsdale-Rust was one of the very few teachers at her school who wasn't a nun. _Civilians_ , as the pupils off-handedly described them. Her teacher was a relative of the noble Rust family. Not a full-blown Rust: but closely enough related for her to cherish her status and be jealously proud of it. Bekki suspected there was going to be trouble here.

The trouble began when miss Lonsdale-Rust taught about the history of the old Ankh-Morporkian Empire. She took it as axiomatic that the Empire had been a Good Thing, the manner in which Ankh-Morpork had spread its evolved ideas of justice, freedom, democracy and enlightened government around the known Disc. The subject peoples had been exposed to enlightened governance and had learnt lessons at the hands of their colonial rulers. Indeed they would never have known of these things until the people of Ankh-Morpork had selflessly come to share them.

Bekki took a deep breath. She hoped it wouldn't get worse. It did.

Miss Lonsdale-Rust dealt with the deplorable situation prevailing over a century before, when misguided and malcontent colonial peoples had taken advantage of Ankh-Morpork's relative weakness to rise in revolution and seek an independence which, in the opinion of miss Lonsdale-Rust, they should not have sought. They should have been happy to remain colonial subjects for their own good!

Her teacher cited three examples of _ungrateful_ and _misguided_ colonial subjects. _Hergen. Llamedos_. And _Rimwards Howondaland_. All of whom had foully and ungratefully fought their wise overlords a century or more before.

"The subject Kerrigian peoples of Rimwards Howondaland should have been _grateful_ for the unstinting assistance we gave them in their hour of need, when they were threatened by invasion from the Zulu Empire." Her teacher declared from the front of the class. "At great loss to our nation, and with no expectation of reward. Instead, a little over twenty years later, those people, who spoke and still speak a debased and degraded form of Kerrigian, showed their true colours by taking advantage of Ankh-Morpork and rising in rebellion over some perceived slight or other, in what we still call today the Boor Wars…"

She graciously noted the raised hand.

"You have an observation, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons?"

"Please, miss. The Ankh-Morporkians _did_ expect something in return for assistance during the Zulu Wars. _My country,_ or to be precise my mother's country, of which I am a citizen and proud to be a citizen _,_ is rich in gold and diamonds. The underlying issue, we are taught, is who controlled those resources. This was also key to the _War of Independence_ later on."

Bekki glared at her teacher.

 _There. I've said it. Suck on that. Or go voetsaak._

Bekki was aware of a grin and an ecstatic thumbs-up from Shauna O'Hennigan. Who had been shifting uneasily in her seat whilst hearing Hergenians being described as an uncivilised, untrustworthy and war-addicted tribe, always eager to fight.

The teacher frowned.

"Do not be insolent, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. And I notice you have a Morporkian accent. You are being brought up and educated in this city. You will therefore remain silent and learn Ankh-Morporkian history. Show some patriotism and respect for your nation."

"I believe I am. Miss." Bekki said. She was suddenly furious. A demon inside her made her say, very loudly and clearly,

" _Sal veg tot die einde, om ons nasie te smelt!"_

Her teacher blinked.

"You will have the goodness to speak Morporkian in my classroom, miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons."

"Even when discussing my _other_ country, miss?" Bekki asked, pushing the confrontation. She added, witth emphasis, " _Nie_. Ek dink ek sal nie Morporkianse in jou klaskamer praat nie. Moenie aanvaar dat ek Morporkianse is nie." The other girls either gasped or fell silent. There was a long moment of mutually hostile glare.

"You are being _insolent_ , miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. And disruptive. Get out."

Bekki picked up her bag and coat and walked out. Behind her she heard

"Where do you think YOU are going, miss O'Hennigan?"

"Faith, miss, you're dealing with an irrational, uncivilised and completely unbiddable Hergenian here, who has no gratitude and no respect at all for Ankh-Morpork, so she hasn't. And who is far too quick to take offence for imagined insults. You just said so."

Bekki grinned. A second or two later, Shauna O'Hennigan joined her in the corridor.

"Well, I think we two wild and unruly colonial girls are not now going to be welcome in her classroom. Which gives us a free hour. What do we do with it?"

They walked out of the school together, knowing there would be reckoning and a punishment later. But, feck, they could go voetsaak about that. Fecken' eejits. Pielkops.

They spent it in a coffee shop in the city. Whilst behind them, the school realised two girls were missing.

* * *

Ponder Stibbons shuffled uneasily in his seat. He felt like a little boy who'd misbehaved in class. Being in a head-teacher's office always gave him that feeling. **(1)** He wished Johanna was here. But she'd expressed a wish to stay out of this one. It could be argued she was too near the issues, several times over. Ponder was to keep her informed, however. She'd got a precis of the problem and what had caused Bekki to misbehave. Johanna had privately conceded that in her daughter's position she'd have done pretty much the same. And with less admirable restraint and self-control. Therefore, as she agreed inhuming her daughter's history teacher would not be advisable at this point, she was going to stay out of it and ask Ponder to deal with things. For now.

Ponder looked over to Mother Eviscera. She was a shrewd and somewhat kindly old nun with a lifetime in teaching, who knew how to handle people, and who had seen many tricky situations involving pupils and teaching staff.

"I don't think the pupil-teacher relationship has _irreversibly_ broken down, Professor Stibbons." she said, diplomatically. She looked over at Miss Lonsdale-Rust, who was standing there with her arms folded, in an aura of self-righteousness, a teacher who is retaining saintly self-control in the face of provocation by unruly pupils.

"What I therefore suggest is that we draw a line under the unfortunate events of this afternoon, and all parties begin again. Clean slate, as it were. Rebecka is an incredibly bright and able girl. A credit to the School. Straight A's, with one or two B's, I see. Never been in trouble before. Until today."

Mother Eviscera looked at her History teacher again. It was a long searching look. Then she looked back to Ponder.

"Rebecka's mother, _Doctor Smith-Rhodes_ , sent her apologies for not being able to attend here at short notice?" she said. Ponder noted the emphasis placed on Johanna's name. He wondered if the history teacher had caught this. "Still, she's a fellow teaching professional. I appreciate it isn't _always_ possible to get last-minute cover. Your wife also has occasional duties at the Rimwards Howondalandian Embassy, I think?"

 _There it was again,_ thought Ponder. _Another brick-sized hint_.

"She _is_ called upon for occasional Consular duties, yes." Ponder agreed. It was only ever actually once in a blue moon. But Miss Lonsdale-Rust didn't need to know that.

The Mother Superior smiled a benign nunly smile.

So we are, I think, agreed. I will only take token action against the two young ladies for walking out of the class and absconding from the School. In a spirit of forgiveness and understanding. They will undertake to attend Miss Lonsdale-Rust's classes and not to be disruptive. They will do the assigned homework to the best of their ability."

Mother Eviscera would also privately rebuke her teacher and suggest that she should understand there were a lot of children of immigrant families in Ankh-Morpork. Some of whom would attend her history classes and, although Morporkian on the outside, would not be happy to hear their family backgrounds dismissed as uncouth, uncivilised and primitive. Hergenians, for instance. And Rimwards Howondalandians. Especially those of a proud Boer lineage. She was also, as a history teacher should, to look up the name _Smith-Rhodes_ and refresh her knowledge as to the significance it held in terms of the history she was teaching. And to cross-reference it to her student register, to see if she could perhaps spot a connection. But, for the sake of discipline, neither the father nor the pupil was to know this.

Ponder politely collected Miss Lonsdale-Rust's homework assignment, said he would ensure Rebecka did it, thanked both teachers for their time, and dismissed himself.

* * *

Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled at the two girls. They were sitting in her study at Spa Lane, awaiting her opinion on The Situation. She heard them out, and then said

"For goodness' sake, drop thet eccent. I em just betting thet while your parents are Hergenian, _you_ were born end brought up here, end your real eccent is a Morporkian one. Just es my daughter's is. If Rebecka ever tried to imitate the way I speak Morporkian, I'd consider she was taking the piss, es thet is not her netural voice. You understend me? _Kiff_. Be yourself. Important."

Shauna smiled, embarrassedly.

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, Understood." Her accent was now pure Dimwell.

Johanna smiled.

"So we have a situation. You have a history teacher who is a complete dof. She has meneged to alienate both of you. One of you was thrown out of her clessroom. The other one walked out in disgust end solidarity."

Johanna shook her head and tutted.

"Es a teacher myself, I try not to provoke these situations. There is a responsibility to treat all your students fairly end equally."

Johanna remembered a time when she _hadn't_. It still made her feel ashamed. She sympathised with the horrendous-sounding Miss Lonsdale-Rust to that extent.

" _But._ Rebecka. You remember I told you life is not fair? End thet whetever else life promises to be, it never promises to be fair?"

Johanna built on this theme. She pointed out that as a teacher herself, one of the most embarrassing things that can ever happen is to be told _your own child_ has misbehaved at school and made life difficult for a fellow member of the Teachers' Guild. One thing that can get in the way of the mutual loyalty a mother has for a daughter. _Teachers stick together._ At least, in front of the pupils. She, Johanna Smith-Rhodes, was now in the position, if she ever met this Miss Lonsdale-Rust, of having to sincerely apologise for her daughter's bad behaviour in class, and the way she had challenged the authority of her teacher. Because it was _expected_ of her. And believe me, Rebecka, knowing you were in the right, es I do, would only make those words stick in my throat. _Do you understand me?_

"Yes, mum." Bekki said, meekly.

Johanna nodded.

"Shauna, your parents know you are here. You will be staying for dinner with us. I will get a cab afterwards to take you home."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." Shauna said, knowing her friend's mother was to be treated with _great_ respect. It felt safest.

Johanna smiled.

"Shauna. I em not one of _your_ teachers. You are here es a friend of my daughter. You may call me Johanna."

Johanna also added that she had asked a friend round for dinner, whose opinion she valued. Especially in a matter like this.

* * *

Godsmother Alice heard the story attentively.

"Interesting." she said. "I wouldn't have provoked a situation like that in the first place, of course. New to teaching, is she? I have to say if any of _my_ pupils were to challenge my interpretation of the facts in a history lesson, provided they did it respectfully and weren't causing trouble for the sake of it, I'd invite them to back up their opinion with facts and give me a reasoned argument. Make it part of the lesson and have a healthy debate. History is mainly a handful of known facts backed up by the way you choose to interpret them, after all."

Alice Band taught History, among other things, at the Assassins' Guild School. She was an experienced teacher of History.

"And I have to say that if anybody were to tell me my godsdaughter had been disruptive in a school lesson, to the point where her teacher had to exclude her from the class, then I might feel I had to have a quiet little word with that godsdaughter." she added. "I don't like to feel as if I'm failing in my duties as Godsmother. It reflects badly on me."

"I'd _like_ to say I'm sorry…" Bekki mumbled.

Alice smiled slightly.

"And apologise to her teacher. _Even if my godsdaughter was in the right."_ she added _._ "Because you can't have pupils disrupting classes. Makes it tougher for everybody. If the teacher whose class was disrupted brought it on her own head by behaving like an idiot, then, well, you have a little word with _her_ too, later. Where the pupils can't hear it."

Alice smiled again. "I've done that in the past. Quiet little chats with a new teacher who was getting it woefully wrong out of sheer inexperience, and unhelpful attitudes she was finding it hard to get out of." **(3)**

Bekki noticed her godsmother nod in the direction of her mother. "No need to spell it out, Johanna." Her mother looked uncomfortable for a second or two. Alice smiled again. "That teacher _did_ improve massively after she had a talking-to, though. She was worth persisting with."

Alice looked at the two girls.

"Anyway. Ponder's told us what the deal is with the school. And got the essay titles your History teacher wants you to tackle for her. Can I see them? Thanks."

Alice took the note from Ponder Stibbons. She read it, and whistled.

"Creatively nasty, I have to say. Rebecka, you have a week to write an essay on the causes and outcome of the First Zulu War. Big topic area. Lots of variant interpretations. Lots of different players, too. At least two White Howondalandian factions, Ankh-Morpork, the Zulus, and the suspicion the Klatchians were stirring things up in the background to make trouble. Also the complication that _lots_ of your family were involved."

She turned to Shauna.

"And _you_ get The Great Hergenian Famine of 1848. That's a trap too. Hergen ran out of potatoes and wahoonies, Lots of people starved, the cemeteries filled, it's been a bone of contention ever since. And you're Hergenian enough for it to matter."

Alice put the paper down. She looked seriously at the two girls.

"She might be a Rust, but she's not completely stupid. She's deliberately picked essay topics for you that are close to the heart, part of your family histories, topics you can't stand back from and which you will find it hard to be objective about, hoping you're both going to put in emotive and one-sided work that she can legitimately fail you on.

"So here is what you will do. There's a legitimate dispute going on here between the teacher and her pupils. It's both fair and professionally acceptable for a third party to step in as arbiter. To ensure objectivity and fair play. I am a history teacher. I've been doing it for years. You will write these essays and submit them to me _first_ for _my_ assessment. I will grade them as I would work submitted by my own pupils. This will be rigorous and fair. If I think it's unacceptable, I will send it back, and you will do it again. Then when you submit the finished essays to your own teacher for her assessment, if her mark varies from mine in any way I will then be able to approach her, on a peer to peer basis, and politely ask her _why_. I will also write to her, and politely explain this arrangement safeguards everybody, and ensures fair play. So it is in her best interests to go along with it. Oh, and I'll also talk to Mother Superior at Sek's. She knows me. I think she'll be agreeable. It also keeps _you_ out of it, Johanna. I can see your fists itching from a mile away. You _really_ don't want to be one of those parents from Hell who end up punching a teacher on behalf of their kid. Even, in this case, with sufficient provocation. It still looks bad."

"Thenk you, Ellice." Johanna said.

That night, Bekki started reading a history of the Zulu War. She put the book down when she got too tired to read any more. But her head was buzzing with ideas and possibilities. She eventually fell into deep sleep..

* * *

"Hello, _liewe hecksie_." said a friendly female voice. "Remember me from last time?" She was speaking in Vondalaans.

In her dreamscape, Bekki turned. She saw the older woman she recognised as Johanna van der Kaiboetje Smith-Rhodes.

"It is so good to have somebody living in the family we can actually _talk_ to." her ancestor said. "Your mother, for instance, never notices when we try to catch her attention. And you are growing up beautifully, _liewe hecksie."_

Bekki looked around her. She was scanning for Dungeon Dimension Things. Her ancestor laughed gently.

" _That_ enemy you will not see here. This time, you are fighting a different battle. One of the _mind._ I am here because we were watching you, and it occurred to us that at this time you might appreciate a history lesson. Walk with me, Rebecka."

Rebecka took her great-great grandmother's hand. Here, it felt warm and alive and solid. They walked together into a sunlit veldt…

 _To be continued…_

* * *

 **(1)** This was head-teacher's boffo when dealing with the parents of children. _Make them feel like little kids themselves. Induce guilty memories. It makes them easier to manage._ It was one of the first trade secrets taught to headteachers when donning the mortarboard of office. Or, in this case, the wimple.

 **(2)** Bekki has basically told her teacher to shove it, that if she hasn't noticed I'm _not_ Morporkian, at least in one vital respect, and that she is not going to speak Morporkian in this classroom when her other heritage is being dismissed and belittled like this. Loose translation, anyway.

 **(3)** See my tale _**The Graduation Class.**_


	9. Geskeidenis

_**Strandpiel 9:Geskeidenis**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

 _ **Bekki is having an enhanced spiritual experience and a practical history lesson… her first teacher Susan Sto Helit would recognise what may be happening here. She did much the same in**_ **Thief of Time… _I am cannibalising notes written at the time to guide the coming plot of my long-stalled tale "Ripping Yarn", about the tail-end of Empire in Howondaland with a plot not unlike that of the movie "Zulu". altough there wasn't a Johanna Smith-Rhodes in Zulu. There ought to have been, though._  
**

"This is Howondaland?" Bekki asked. She looked out over rolling red-earth veldt and distant hills under a brilliant blue sky. She'd visited regularly with her family to meet relatives at Home. She knew the look and feel of the land and associated it with her ouma and her oupa and her aunts and uncles and cousins. A place where without any great fuss and drama, the family from Ankh-Morpork was always quietly accepted by a greater whole and made to feel loved and welcomed. It represented warmth and security and Family. Bobotie and koeksisters with Rooibuis tea. Oupa Barbarossa, larger than life, throwing out his arms and roaring "Welcome! Where are my beautiful little girls?"

But this Howondaland felt somehow more solid and real and vital. It also felt deeply troubled and oppressive, as if a great weight hung over it. Bekki sensed that her dreamscape was trying to tell her something. Daddy had said that when you walked in the Other World during your dreams, it was still a real place, but thoughts and the feelings and the accumulated weight of memories and events associated with a place were magnified. The abstract becomes real, Daddy had said. It speaks loudly to you. It shouts sometimes, but not in words. It projects pictures. Bekki had found her father's wizard-talk hard to understand; she realised why Irena and Olga would snort with derision and ask "Why do wizards have to over-intellectualise things? They kill it with words!"

Irena, her Witch-Godsmother, would shrug here and say something like "It's still the real world you walk in every day. But when you Step Out, it becomes the real world, _plus_."

Bekki looked across to the kindly older lady who was guiding her. Who had been dead, technically speaking, for the best part of a century. Not that it appeared to have slowed her down very much. Then again, she was a Smith-Rhodes woman. Bekki wondered if her own mother would, when her time came, also find death to be a minor inconvenience to living a full and active Afterlife. She considered Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes, her mother. And decided that was a silly question. _Of course_ Mum would shrug it off, swear, and keep going. Her great-great grandmother was the living – well sort of living – proof.

Bekki looked into the hills across the river. They were shrouded in something ominous. Something alien and frightening. She sensed this was the _plus_.

It didn't help that she and her several times great-grandmother were currently hanging in the air, several hundred feet up.

"You get a better view from up here." Johanna van der Kaiboetje Smith-Rhodes remarked, as if this was no biggie. She drew Bekki's attention to a scattered cluster of buildings in the lee of some high hills.

"That's the Omnian mission station at Lawke's Drain." she remarked. Activity was going on. Men in red coats, soldiers of some sort, were unhurriedly unloading crates and sacks from ox-drawn carts. There was a sense of men doing a job that needed to be done, but quietly getting on with it without undue drama. A working party further along was trying to establish a crossing point over a wide shallow river. The ground showed signs of the recent passage of lots and lots of men and animals, as if an army had passed this way.

Bekki frowned. Lawkes Drain was a great big military fortress, wasn't it? Guarding a strategic river-crossing on the frontier, to deny it to the Zulus next door. The original buildings, site of an iconic battle, now preserved as a shrine and as a tourist attraction. Mum said her Uncle Baal ran tourist parties up there from the family plaas, not that far away, for a consideration expressed in rand. Uncle Baal was apparently a sort of Vondalaander Dibbler.

But where was the fortress?

Her ancestor smiled tolerantly.

"The fortress was built later, _liewe hecksie_." She said. "This is Lawkes Drain, as it was. Then. When it happened. Or perhaps a week before it happened."

Bekki realised.

"We've gone back in time?"

Johanna nodded.

"Time is not fixed here, _liewe hecksie_. I did say I was going to give you a history lesson. I passed through Lawkes Drain on the way out. With the Army. We can call back here. But I need to show you my memories. This may help in your fight, in your time, with that fool of a woman who is presuming to teach you a history of which she knows nothing."

Bekki looked at her.

"How did you know that…"

Johanna patted her arm. it was a warm loving touch.

"We're nearer than you think, _liewe hecksie_. We like to keep in touch with our family. I witnessed your battle. Where you and the Hergenian girl stood up and said "no, we will not take this."

The ground flew away beneath them. Lawkes' Drain receded in to the distance.

"But you're all…"

"Dead? _Ja._ Our times came. We passed on. That doesn't mean we have to be strangers, or that we can't take an interest. And it's something to take an interest _in_. You would not believe how monotonous it can get, sometimes."

Bekki considered this.

"Are you around _all_ the time?"

Johanna laughed, amused.

"Hell, no! That would intrude on your privacy. It would not be right. And _vorbei,_ we have other things to do here. We have Afterlives to lead, you know? But at times of crisis, or high emotion, or decision… you are alerted. _Prompted_. To pop back and observe. To help, if we can. Although most of our descendants have the psychic ability of rocks. Your mother is a fine and an admirable woman, but she wouldn't recognise a message from the spirit world, even if it kicked her very hard in the guava."

Johanna sighed, resignedly.

"I fear I'll only ever get to have a proper sit-down getting-to-know-you conversation with your mother when she dies and joins us here. A shame. I like her. But the Smith-Rhodes family has never had much of a magical streak in it. Magical ability isn't a survival quality in the Veldt. We have never bred for it."

Johanna, the oldest Johanna, turned and smiled at Bekki.

"Until now, _liewe hecksie_. You are the first. Do you realise how rare that makes you? A Smith-Rhodes with magic? From your fine and gentle father. A good man. He brought something new to our family. _You_."

They were passing now to a mountain, standing proud from the surrounding earth. From the right angle and if you squinted sideways and covered one eye, it looked a little like a lion, or perhaps a really weather-eroded sphynx.

An encampment of tents and parked carts was set up beneath its feet. A mighty army had indeed passed this way and made its orderly lines. But something was terribly wrong…

"These are bad memories for me, _liewe hecksie_." Johanna said. "I may need _your_ support."

"You have it, ouma." Bekki said.

Her ancestor smiled.

"Dankie. This may be unpleasant for you too. _Maar, hou jou lyn. Staan vas._ This was terrible for me too."

They flew down over the terrible scene. The battle was nearly over. Men, lots of dead men. In the red coats of Ankh-Morpork. Nearly naked black-skinned men. Scattered weapons. The black warriors were there. In their hundreds and their thousands. Many dead, some feebly struggling still. In the sky, vultures wheeled unhurriedly. They could afford to wait. The black warriors were already stripping the dead. Looting. Pulling on the red coats of the fallen. Finishing off those who were not quite dead yet.

"That, I learned later, is not desecration or disrespect for the fallen." Johanna said, quietly. "The Zulus believe stabbing a man in the stomach to finish him is respect for a worthy foe. It allows his spirit to ascend to Heaven as a great warrior. And taking an item of his clothing to wear is a tribute to a brave warrior. Apparently you assume something of his bravery in so doing."

They watched the terrible, heart-breaking scene unfold.

"They also thought the red clothes were pretty natty. Blood-red. A worthy cloak for a warrior." Johanna said, drily. "And they really, really, needed crossbows and ammunition. The Zulu Empire did not manufacture them."

Bekki noted her ancestor was breathing deeply and heavily, as if preparing herself for an ordeal. Bekki took her arm to steady her. She looked frail, and old. Bekki was reminded that she was nearer seventy than sixty. Probably.

Here and there, little knots of desperate soldiers were still fighting last stands. Their battle over and lost beyond rescue. But still they fought.

Johanna led them to one particular battle..

The woman was red-haired. In her middle twenties, possibly. She was dressed in Boer khaki, hatless, her tangled red hair streaming. As Bekki watched, the whip she was desperately flailing in her left hand to keep the Zulus at bay tangled around the assegai of a warrior. Perhaps cleverer and more astute than others, he tugged with his spear. The woman was tiring. She gave a cry of despair as he pulled the whip from her left hand, disarming her, taking the weapon away. But she still had a machete, the all-purpose weapon, in her right hand…

"Your mother realised it too, I think." Johanna said. "A whip is a great thing. You can do tricks with it. It's a useful weapon. We are all good at it. But ultimately, a showy distraction. Gets in the way. As I found out down there. You notice she doesn't carry it much, these days. Your Aunt Mariella doesn't use one at all."

Bekki recognised the machete. Here, it looked new, sparkling, yet to be enamelled black.

"Yes." Johanna van der Kaiboetje Smith-Rhodes said, quietly. "That is me down there _, liewe hecksie_. As I was on the day. And that is the sword. It was new, then."

Bekki, appalled, realised how much like her mother the woman looked.

And her face was contorted with fear. And despair. And regret. Yet still she fought, alone in a circle of cautiously encroaching Zulu warriors.

"The history books tell you how she fought alone and how brave she was." Johanna said, quietly. "That she fought till the last, roared defiance, and never gave in. That the bravest of Boer women fought till the bitter end and was one of the last to be overcome at Isandhlwana."

They watched the woman, tears streaming down her face, screaming "Make an end, you bastards! Kill me!" as she swung her sword. Another Zulu fell. There was a spray of red. Bekki winced and looked away, feeling the horror.

"I was terrified." Johanna said. "And heartsick. My husband was somewhere else nearby. Probably dead. I just wanted it to end and to join him. Quickly. And maybe an hour before, we'd been in among a mighty unbeatable army that was going to roll over the Zulu country. Or so we thought. But just then, I really didn't want to carry on living."

The end came quickly. As the woman tired, Zulus who had been cautiously creeping up behind her rushed forward. They leapt. She fell, submerged, still feebly struggling, among a press of black bodies, and was lost to view.

"And that's where it should have ended." Johanna said. "Charles and I had no children. Then. He should have died, I should have died. There would have been no Smith-Rhodes family. No descendants. Ultimately, no _you_."

She took Bekki to a different part of the battlefield. Two or three men on horses were galloping away, pursued by Zulus. One of the riders, wearing an orange and not a red jacket for some reason, was encumbered by a body slung over his horse. He had a strange multicoloured sort of sash draped about him. The other two riders seemed determined to defend him and get him out of there. Bekki gasped. He looked a lot like Uncle Julian. The resemblance was striking.

They watched the three riders gradually put more distance between themselves and pursuit. They galloped to distant safety.

"Charles Smith-Rhodes, my husband." she said. "He escaped. Not the Charles Smith-Rhodes of your time. The man I married. The son of Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes. He rescued the Ankh-Morporkian flag. Important. To a certain mind. To deny it as a prize to your enemy."

"He rescued a flag, and abandoned _you_?" Bekki said, indignantly. Johanna laughed, amused.

"Nothing to forgive, _liewe hecksie_. He thought I was dead. A reasonable thing to think on that terrible day. He _should_ have rescued himself. I'd have shouted at him if he hadn't. I do not forgive him, though, for the man he rescued and slowed his horse down with. Needlessly. That was Lord Rust he was carrying. Rust. The imbecile who led that Army to destruction and saw two thousand men slaughtered. Under his leadership. Rust. The man who thought the Zulus would run if they saw good cold Ankh-Morporkian steel."

Bekki caught her ancestor's incandescent anger. It was like Mum when she _really_ went off bang. Scary.

"He got to Lawkes' Drain. With Rust. But that's a different story."

"And what happened to you?" Bekki asked.

"Watch." Johanna said.

Bekki saw her ancestor, a young woman, dragged to her feet by Zulus. Her clothing torn and bloodstained. An important Zulu in a lionskin cloak and ornate headdress stepped forward to scrutinise her.

"What are you waiting for, you bastard?" the woman said, in a hoarse croaking voice. "Rape me. Or kill me. Or whatever you have in mind. Just get it over with quickly."

The Zulu general nodded and made a very slight smile. Then he made the warrior salute and raised his assegai and shield to her.

"Luckily for you, my parents are not formally married." he said. In Vondalaans. "So I am truly a bastard. And I don't rape. Or condone rape. Anyway. Too thin. Too pale. That disfiguring skin blemish and the flame coloured hair. Lady warrior, I assure you _you_ have no fear of rape. Come with me. The Paramount wishes to speak to you."

Johanna sighed.

"I was a guest of the Zulus for over two years. Till the war ended. Didn't see Charles again for a _long_ time. The fierce lady warrior who fought to the last sparked something in them. I was an enemy worth respecting. I learnt about them. Their language, their culture, their history. What can I say? I liked them."

Bekki saw her ancestor again, walking in a Zulu kraal, dressed in a native manner, a sarong-like dress appropriate to a married woman that covered her breasts and everything down to the knees. Incredibly, she wore her machete. She was also treated with friendly respect by the Zulus around her. She looked very much at home, in fact.

"They retrieved my sword." she said. "The Paramount King said a warrior should have her weapons. It would be shameful if I _didn't._ I promised not to use the sword on my hosts, and we understood each other. So he gave me the sword back. I hope his descendants didn't come to regret that _too_ much. A good man, Ceteswayo. The history books say he was insane and power-hungry. Don't believe them."

"Why is it that people don't like ginger hair and freckles very much?" Bekki asked. It was one of life's indignities that she felt keenly.

"Ag. Some men don't. They have a prejudice. Based on the colour of your skin. Happens a lot in this country."

"Is that an ironic comment?" Bekki asked.

"You're quick, _liewe hecksie_. I like you."

Bekki got as full an account of the Zulu War as was possible before the magic, or whatever it was, wore off. She returned to her own bedroom, wide awake, with possibly three hours to go before breakfast. She spent the time writing down as much of it as possible before she forgot. What was it Godsmother Alice had said about history… _eye-witness accounts are always valuable primary sources…_ She also made a note to look up the Lord Rust who had commanded at Isandlhwana. And write _him_ into the essay. Just to annoy _his_ descendant, her history teacher. This thought made Bekki smile. As Godsmother Alice had said, keep it objective in whatever you write, and however you interpret the known facts. Including the known facts about the generalship of the Rust family. She could not be penalised for sticking to the known facts.

She was looking forward to presenting her essay to Miss Lonsdale-Rust.

* * *

Her training in witchcraft was also progressing. The latest lesson involved the vital Witch skill of Mucking Out The Stables. Irena and Olga thought this was a useful skill for a young witch to learn.

What made it interesting was the fact the stables were on the wide flat roof of the mews at Pseudopolis Yard. A flat roof sixty feet up is not the usual sort of place to find a stables. Not even Bloody Stupid Johnson had designed a roof-level stable. Anywhere.

But these were not ordinary horses. Not at all.

And everything up here was geared up to flight and flying. There was an adapted Clacks tower that also served as a sort of Mission Control. You could clacks from it. It was staffed by goblins. But the platform at the top also housed an observation post, staffed by a duty Watchman, who manned, or personned, the omniscope link that served for communication with the duty Air Police flight. And with the longer-range long-haul flyers of the Pegasus Service, wherever they were in the Disc. It also linked to HEX, the University's thinking engine. The Pegasus pilots off-handedly referred to it as the Control Tower. Sam Vimes himself liked to loaf around up there, when he wasn't too busy, watching what was going on or just observing the City.

There were hangars for the collection of broomsticks and magic carpets that had accumulated in the inventory of the Air Police. A group of Dwarfs, ground crew and flight technicians, were based here. They could be heard at all hours tinkering with the technomancy that made it all work. Buggy Swires had his aviaries here, for the birds the Feegle pilots flew.

Periodically, a Dwarf would race out into the middle of the huge white circle painted on the roof with two wooden paddles, and perform a complicated ballet-cum-semaphore dance to guide a pilot down to land. For some reason a large letter "H" was painted in the middle of the circle **.(1)** Nobody knew what it was for. But it felt right. The circle would not be complete without it. Bekki thought it was a magic circle which needed a rune. Wizard stuff. Her father would know. She shrugged, and trucked the latest wheelbarrow full of muck to the service lift that ran down the outside of the building. Harry King's boys would collect and dispose. Getting the muck to ground level required a lift. Getting hay and straw and fodder up here needed a lift too.

Lieutenant Olga Romanoff, who commanded the Air Police and was the accepted Squadron Leader, had her office up here, near to the action. Olga was another Witch, with an interest in broomstick and flight technomancy, who had found her niche in the Watch. She also had a responsibility for Bekki's further vocational education.

But the stables were big. There were stalls for eight Pegasii. Not all of them would be here at any one time. Some were in Lancre, where the flying horses were bred. The Air Police had a forward base there too. Others would be around the Disc on missions. At any one time, no more than two or three would be in the stables where, with wings folded back against their bodies, they would placidly eat hay and watch the world go by like any other horse at rest.

Bekki was enthralled by them. It made the shovel-and-brush-and-wheelbarrow work worthwhile.

As she worked, she wondered when her flying lessons would begin.

Godsmother Irena had smiled slightly.

"All in good time, _devyushka_." she had said. "Remember I told you we begin by learning witchcraft from the ground up?"

She had shown Bekki the wheelbarrow, brush and shovel.

" _This_ is starting at ground level. You get to the sky when I think you're good and ready."

Bekki sighed. She got on with it. As she worked, she wondered about the psychic link she'd established to her dead ancestors. She found it hard to think of them as dead. Even though she had looked up the birth and death dates of all four Johannas. They were definitely dead to _this_ world. But she suspected she'd meet all of them in the sort of dreams that were more than dreams. The ones her father had advised her not to dismiss as "just dreams." And he should know.

 _Well, if they're my spirit guides, I'd rather have **them** , than that drunken Indian Mrs Cake has to make do with. _

* * *

She'd met Evadne Cake. Mrs Proust had introduced them. Although Mrs Cake had haughtily said she wanted nothing to do with anything so common as witchcraft, she was a bona fide _spiritual medium_ , if you please, Bekki had realised, at a deeper level, that this was a very specialised form of Witchcraft in action. Mrs Proust had mildly said all witches could do it, if we could be bothered to, but as a rule, girl, the dead are going to be as interesting from the other side of the grave as they were when they were still alive. So half the time, it's hardly worth the bother. Having to shuffle to one side inside your own head to let somebody come in and have a go at operating your voice, and things… then getting them to shift, afterwards. Bloody inconvenient, if you asked her.

Mrs Cake had looked reflective at this and said "True, that."

Bekki had gathered that Mrs Cake and Mrs Proust, while not exactly old friends, understood each other's point of view. Which was as good as.

Then Mrs Cake had looked long and hard at Bekki, and smiled one of those old-lady smiles that said she _knew_. Bekki didn't feel comfortable around that sort of smile.

"well, young lady." Mrs Cake had said, shaking her head slightly. "Have _you_ got some spirit guides!"

Then she had gone all distant and said "Speak good honest Morporkian, will you! Can't understand a bleeding word I'm saying here!"

This was closely followed by

" _Hei, liewe hecksie!_ _Dit is lekker om jou weer te sien."_

"Would you credit it, love. This one's foreign. Trying to get me to speak in some sort of foreign… I keep telling them and telling them, speak _Morporkian_ , will you!"

Bekki tried to make sense of it.

"Err.. I know you are going to be one of four people. Which Johanna are you, please?" she asked.

"Sorry, Mrs Cake. She's right determined, this one. If it helps, she's from the really mad bit of Howondaland, and she keeps pushing me out of the way… ow! That _hurt_!"

Bekki blinked. Three different voices were emerging from the little old lady's mouth. And one seemed out of synch with the others.

"If it makes you feel more comforteble, I will speak Morporkien." said the other voice. "Sit over _there_ , you silly little man. Wait till I em finished. _Dankie_. Besides, getting this voice to articulate Vondalaans is difficult. Rebecka. I em your great-aunt Johanna. Your grendfather's sister. Perheps you could warn Andreas concerning gelloping a horse where there are ant-bear burrows? The two do not go together. This is _important_. While I em fond of the great hulking lout, I would prefer not to see him here justnow. End it is good to see you, little one."

Mrs Cake was now speaking Morporkian with a Howondalandian accent. A plausible one. Some comedians tried to "do" the accent for laughs. It made her teeth grate.

"Is oupa Barbarossa in danger?" Bekki asked.

"Tell him to take care where he rides. Also thet riding a horse efter drinking is not a good idea. Oh, and your cousin Johanna hes distinguished herself. Tell her we saw how she fought on the jungle trail et Kokoda. We are proud of her. She hes the Silver Star. You will read ebout it in the newspapers. I must now leave. Take care!"

Bekki blinked. Mrs Cake came back to everyday reality.

"Bloody Howondalandians." she grumbled. "Not you, Bucket. The other sort. Come over here, taking our voices and making us speak in foreign. And their Morporkian ain't much better either."

Bekki looked at Mrs Proust. The ugly old witch smiled.

"I'd read the evening papers if I was you, love. And pass the warning onto your grand-dad."

It was actually in a message from the Embassy. Lady Katerina Vinhuis, wife of the new Ambassador, gaily told Mum she must be so proud. Your niece Johanna, I believe she was a pupil at your school, has been cited for the Silver Star for bravery in combat? It must run in your family. She killed three beastly insurgents in a running battle in Smith-Rhodesia, at Kokoda on the Border…"

Bekki noted that the sixth in the line of Johanna Smith-Rhodeses was now making her reputation. No doubt with the inherited Sword.

She also wrote to her grandparents saying "Watch where you ride. I heard about how ant-bear holes can trip a running horse and forgive me if the thought worries me…"

She now suspected the thing with her spirit guides was really real. She wasn't imagining it.

* * *

Offered a tea-break in the Air Police office, she confided her story to Olga and Nottie Garlick. Neither witch showed scepticism. They heard her out and paid attention.

"Makes sense." Nottie said. "Hey. When you're brought up in a castle and there's family history going back a long way. Even if most of our ghosts are now squatting in Mrs Ogg's laundry room. It happens. Families create their own magic. I go round to Nanny Ogg's now and again and talk to them. They appreciate it. Having a descendant they can speak to. You get to hear some stories."

"Same here." Olga agreed. "My family goes back a long way, too. There are some ancestors you _really_ don't want hanging around. Some past Grand Dukes were not nice people. Not nice at all. _Govno,_ the current Grand Duke is a bit of a bastard. And he's my father!"

Bekki had made tea for all three. This had formerly been Nottie's job. But Bekki was now youngest witch. This, she gathered, was another vital Witch skill. She had assumed it uncomplainingly.

They each took a sip.

Olga reflected.

"The Agateans have this sort of religion." she said. Your ancestors don't go away when they die. They sort of hang around. Or pop back every so often. Help out. They become sort of Small Gods to the family. The family is expected to honour their memory. Shrines. Ceremonies. Things become heirlooms and get handed down the generations. Over time they become a sort of guardian spirit. Ponder Stibbons might dress all that up in wizard-talk and speculate it has an accumulator effect. Belief gives them power. The longer it goes on, the more belief gets fed in, the more power it attracts. Localised magic only the family can tap into."

Olga sipped her tea again.

"And because so far, the Smith-Rhodes family has been as un-magical as anything you'll find anywhere, you've all been building up this power and _nobody's noticed_. It's been building up with nowhere to go to. Until now."

She smiled pleasantly at Bekki.

"Your mother. Lovely lady. Good friend. I like her. She would be the first to admit a frozen chicken has got more magical sense than she has. She's typical of your family. No magic whatsoever. Your family has different priorities, right? Then your family gets its very first magic user. Ever. Who is a Smith-Rhodes by blood. Your father can't do it, _devyushka_. He only married into your family. You've got the blood. You can do magic. You get the whole lot. At once."

She reached over and patted Bekki's shoulder.

"What's it like to discover you're Agatean?" she asked, pleasantly.

"How soon can I start flying lessons?" Bekki asked, changing the subject.

"All in good time." Olga replied. "What's that word you people use? _Justnow_."

"I'd prefer _na-now_ " Bekki said, frankly.

She remembered flying, in her dream-that-was-not-a-dream, with the first Johanna. She wanted that again. Without the battlefield beneath, this time.

* * *

Bekki was still doing swords practice. Much to the despair of her tutors, and to the vocal disgust of her sister Famke, she was still utterly incapable of hitting back. Especially a friend. Her heart just wasn't in it. She felt silly and useless.

Until the evening Emmanuel-Martin de Lapoignard had a brainwave.

"Beccs. Let me try this." He said. "I know it makes me look stupid.."

He took a cardboard cut-out of a human face, which had eye-slits cut in it and elastic bands looped through its ears, which he used to secure to his own ears.

Bekki blinked. It was the face of Parsifal Venturi.

"We took iconographs of each other." Manni said, his voice muffled. "Class Art project. We learnt to develop them in the dark room in the cellar. You know, true iconographs using silver nitrate. I had this idea. I got Parsi to pose and look smug and important. Blew the picture up to lifesize, and…"

" _En garde!"_ Bekki shrieked, seeing the hated face. Memories of that smug, oily, patronising, bullying, sneering, braying little _shit_ Parsifal welled up in her.

" _Bloody hell!"_ Manni shouted.

Ten minutes later he was rubbing a lot of bruises.

"I did this for you, Beccs." he said. He grinned. "It looks like it worked."

"Oh, Manni!" she said, almost sobbing. "I'm so _sorry_. You know I love you!"

He let himself be hugged.

"It was worth it." he said. "sister."

In the background, Johanna Smith-Rhodes and Emmanuelle de Lapoignard shook hands, grinning. Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons was speechless, for once, her mouth gaping open in astonishment.

A day or two later, a crossbow target bearing a lifesize iconographic image of Parsifal Venturi appeared on the Butts, on a quiet morning with hardly anyone around but a mother teaching her daughter to shoot. It was very soon riddled with accurately placed quarrels.

 _ **Again, to be continued…**_

* * *

 **(1)** Olga and Irena maintained it was pronounced "N". "Our alphabet." Olga said. "It's an "N"".

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future.**


	10. Ontwaking

_**Strandpiel 10: Ontwaking - Awakening  
**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

Dear Ruth.

We all miss you very much here in Ankh-Morpork. Mum says it isn't the same without you there. Auntie Heidi wants to know who is going to brew the tea for her now you are gone. I suspect this is a joke you had between you, that the black girl always makes the tea for her white betters, to which you would reply, choke on this, baas-lady, or something similar. It must be a joke you had between friends, as Auntie Heidi always seemed happy to make the tea for you in her turn?

I hope Dinizulu is a good husband to you and is a nice handsome and pleasant man who loves you very much. Auntie Emmie said that these things may be fixed if he isn't. Grandmother Joan said there are ways a marriage can be improved if it runs into bother. Godsmother Alice has asked to be kept informed and for you to keep in touch. I did not enquire further. Mum said not to. Mum made inquiries. All she could discover about your husband is that he is a capable commander with battle experience and has the leadership of a Bull's Horn Of The Left. This is a word for a group of regiments, a division of the Army? Which makes him a General?

I hope he is a better general than any of the Lord Rusts, who I have been reading about. I have been studying Howondalandian history for School. Mum thinks it is not hard to be a better general than a Rust. I am inclined to agree with her. Especially after finding out about the Zulu Wars and the horrible, horrible, battle at Isandlhwana. I had a bad dream about Isandhlwana. It was a horrid place.

I must ask you, Ruth. Our history books are written by Ankh-Morporkians. I can also read the history books taught in Rimwards Howondaland, which tell the same history differently. This is perplexing, as there can only be one past. But there is an Ankh-Morporkian past and a Howondalandian past and it sometimes reads as if they are telling two different histories that happened on two different worlds. Godsmother Alice is checking my History work before I submit it and she is being very thorough. I told her I am troubled that in an account of a war with the Zulus, there is nothing at all about them except that they were there and were The Enemy. A large part of the story is missing. I asked Godsmother Alice how I can write about history when the voices of half the people who made that history are silent, and the presumption is that you do not need to take the views or the opinions of The Enemy into account. They are The Enemy, after all.

Godsmother Alice smiled at me and said well done, I could make a historian out of you. You have grasped something fundamental about the study and the practice of history. Something which evades many of my students.

I'm still not sure what it is that I have grasped. But Godsmother Alice said, isn't it obvious? You want to know how the Zulu peoples thought and chose to act a hundred years ago. History books written in Ankh-Morpork don't think this is worth discussing. History books written by White Howondalandians certainly don't think it's worth even considering. Well, then. Ask the Zulus.

So, Ruth, I am asking you. How do your people teach this history?

I have also read that the Paramount King of the time was crazy, greedy, filled with his own importance, despotic, cruel, and filled with an insane hatred of white people. At the same time this proud absolute ruler was also a helpless puppet of the Klatchians who evilly manipulated him to do their bidding. I know this to be true because our history books teach it, and history books don't lie, do they?

But I know he was also an ancestor of yours, perhaps your great-great grandfather. And try as I might, I cannot ever see you sitting on a throne of skulls ordering mass executions. Mum says she could never see you doing that either and that anyway you'd prefer quality over quantity. Craftsmanship, and not a production line. But that's Mum.

So how do I find out more about Paramount King Ceteswayo and the sort of man he really was? My family say he once took my very-great-grandmother prisoner after a battle, and he not only let her go when he could have executed her, he gave her her sword back. He did keep her prisoner, sort of, which was perhaps better than having her running around fighting and killing people. But our stories say she became more of a guest than a prisoner of war and she even got to eat at his dinner table. Which doesn't sound like a bloodthirsty maniac to me, much. Then again, my history teacher, who is a cow, got snotty and said mere family anecdotes do not count. But she thinks her family's stories about previous Lord Rusts are good history. (Did I mention she is a Rust?)

Mum thinks she can get this letter to you without too many other people seeing it. She said anything going through the regular mail to your country with the name "Smith-Rhodes" on it isn't likely to stay unopened for very long. She named at least three lots of really nosey people who would deliberately leave the envelope near a steaming kettle for long enough to soften the glue, and then take a peep inside once it was open. So hello to anyone reading this. You're not meant to and this is between me and Ruth, so go away! She also said not to make any jokes about having an Uncle Havelock either, who really really likes to know what his nieces are thinking, so I won't. She said one of my aunts got into trouble for this. Whoever Uncle Havelock is. It's one of those jokes they all know and I don't and you don't want to ask. But Mum said this was important and I should ask Auntie Mariella. I think I will.

Are you going to have babies, or is it too soon for that? They'd be lovely pretty babies. I'd love to see them. To be their sort of big sister, if that's allowed.

With lots of love and really missing you

Bekki.

* * *

"All this stuff now belongs to your cousin Johanna." her mother said, as she unlocked the wall-safe in her study. Bekki sat quietly in the small office where her mother did her academic work. It was largely lined with bookshelves. Various framed degrees, diplomas and membership certificates hung on one wall. Bekki had read them all. Her Assassins' Guild formal membership. The citation for the Gold Star of Howondaland. Her doctorate from Unseen University. Bekki had wondered about that. Mum had said she had all the magical ability of a housebrick. But she was technically a Wizard? You had to be to get a degree from Unseen, hadn't you? Her membership of the Guild of Doctors. Mum had said she'd learnt a lot of medical stuff on the fly. And there wasn't such a thing as the Guild of Veterinary Surgeons. Animal doctors were, by default, a sub-set of the Doctors' Guild. Mum said, off-handedly, a lot of it was transferable. If you could operate on a cow's stomach, the same sort of bits were all there, all recognisable, and in much the same general places, in a person. It wasn't a great leap. Mum's first degree from the University of Witwatersrand at Home. They'd given it to her after she'd established the City Zoo. Her Guild of Teachers membership. Mum was a teacher. That made sense. You had to be.

The commission that made her officially a Kolonel of the Army Reserve. Bekki read the text, in the formal Kerrigian used for official legal-speak, and Morporkian. Mum had the right, as a loyal and trusty friend of the Staadt, to raise and lead a full Kommando, with auxiliaries, in the lawful defence of her nation, both within the borders of the Republic of the Transvaal and in the greater confederation of Rimwards Howondaland. She tried to imagine her mother in command of a small Army. Her grandfather had one at his disposal. He commanded the local Volkskommando, a reserve unit of irregular cavalry that was called up at need from local farms and communities. They regularly mustered for a day or two of training and a night of enthusiastic drinking afterwards. Grandmother Agnetha tried to be understanding.

 _Why aren't we running the country?_ she thought. **(1)**

And, the most perplexing one of all, her mother was an Associate Tomfool, a member of the Guild Of Fools, Clowns, Jesters, Jugglers, Minstrels, Conjurors, Dorises, Mime Artists And People Who Wear Those Silly Mascot Costumes At Football Games And Theme Parks.

She really wanted to ask about _that_ one. Her mother in a clown costume and the slap? Her two Godsmothers, and one other interested person, were present too. Mum had asked them to be there. Alice Band smiled slightly. "I got one too." she said, guessing Bekki's thoughts. "The Fools' Guild made me a member at the same time. We were both Foolish enough to accept. She hasn't explained to you yet? I've got some iconographs. You might want to see them sometime."

"You asked about the family history." her mother said. "I will keep the Fools' Guild thing for another time. Long story. Now I have to insist we all wear white gloves. These documents are getting no younger."

Pairs of white gloves were handed out. The fifth person present had provided his own. Which was just as well, as his hands needed a custom fit. And, Bekki thought, his feet.

Then Johanna brought out the first of a stack of very carefully stored journals.

"Wow." said Alice Band, feeling the history.

"Wow." said Irena Politek, getting a thrill of latent magic.

"Ook!" said the Librarian, feeling reverence for seriously old books.

Bekki said nothing. She closed her eyes and felt a nearby unannounced presence. She wondered who it would be _this_ time.

"When I pessed the sword on to Young Johanna." Johanna said, "All this became hers also. Custodianship, you might say. She esked me if I could hold onto it for now, es it's in the best place. I want Bekki to have eccess to it, es she hes particular reasons for wanting to know the family history. Treat it with care, Rebecka. Old man, I need your help too. Ebout how best to preserve these old books and documents."

She nodded to the Librarian.

"Oook!" he said. He was a happy Librarian, doing something he loved.

"Irena. Cen you see if there's any megic here we need to know about? Ponder thinks there is."

"It's what Ponder would call induced magic." Irena said. "Things that don't start out being magical in themselves. But they gather it over the years. Yes. _Definite_ magic. But it takes the right person and the right set of circumstances to unlock it."

Everybody looked at Bekki.

"And on one very basic _un_ magical level," Alice Band said, "This is a hundred years' worth of history. Of your country, as seen through the eyes of people who were around at the time. That makes it important, to a given value of important."

She turned to Bekki.

"Remember. You need to cite. Add footnotes. Translate accurately into Morporkian but remember to quote the original text. That's important. So if it comes to peer review, they can See Your Workings. If I were marking it, I could go to an independent third party and get them to check the original and that you've translated accurately. Despite what Miss Lonsdale-Rust says, if you're a historian dealing with other cultures, you _have_ to deal with source texts that aren't in Morporkian. There are accepted conventions for dealing with this sort of thing. Use footnotes and endnotes. And when you're dealing with unpublished texts, you _have to establish provenance_. Or you can be taken in by modern forgeries. Historians have been." **(2)**

Alice smiled a little smile.

"That's why I'm here. Guild of Historians. Giving your family history the official stamp of approval. Provenance. Important."

They bent over the letters, diaries and journals left behind by Johanna's predecessors and got to work, in their own specific disciplines.

Bekki heard the little voice from somewhere near her right shoulder that said

 _If there's anything you don't understand or need to know more about, liewe heksie, just ask. I'm here._

Irena sensed it too. She smiled. Johanna, oblivious to the unseen presence in the room, got on with sorting and explaining whose writings were whose.

"I try to make time now and egain to do trenslations into Morporkian" Johanna explained. "Es end when I can, I'm taking iconograph copies. Releasing some meterial to the Smith-Rhodes Museum in Scrote **.(3)** End Uncle Charles keeps esking for copies. He'll get them, when I get full eccess to _his_ femily archives."

 _I keep trying to get through to your mother, liewe hecksie. Just occasionally she suspects somebody is near. But it is hard work._

Out of nowhere, Irena remarked, seemingly to nobody,

"Well, you might try talking to Ponder Stibbons. Or even to me. I'm here."

Johanna and Alice looked up in surprise. The librarian, busy assessing the condition of some old letters, said "Ook.", then shrugged. He worked with wizards. He saw this sort of thing a lot.

Alice frowned.

"I'm not magical." she said. "But I'm from a priestly family. We get to sense octarine too. It's associated with gods as well as magic. Right now, there's a bit more octarine in the air than you'd expect. Over there, next to Bekki."

Johanna frowned. She looked intently in the region of Bekki's left shoulder.

"I can't see you." she said, in Vondalaans. "I don't even know for certain if anyone's there."

There was a double knock on the table. Everybody jumped.

"Sorry" Alice apologised. "Couldn't resist."

Johanna gave her old friend a Look.

"And I wouldn't be able to hear you. But. If you're who I think you are. You're family. You're welcome."

"She's standing just behind Bekki's shoulder." Irena said, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "About twenty-five. No older than thirty. Looks a bit like you. Some, sorry to mention this, really bad scars on her face."

Irena focused.

"Says her name is Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe. Smith-Rhodes."

Johanna breathed out. She had to make allowances for magic-users. She was married to one. And the mother of another. Who was growing up into being a lightning-conductor for this sort of thing. With lots of noise and blinding white incandescent flashes.

"Well, These _are_ her diaries. End we're reading them. I still can't see you. But welcome."

Alice Band breathed out.

"This certainly sorts out the provenance thing." she said. "But how do I word _this_ in my report to the Guild of Historians? The long-dead author popped in to say "Yes, it _was_ me who wrote these things ninety-five years ago.""

Irena smiled slightly. She listened to an empty space.

"Alice, Johanna Cornelia has just pointed out that history is all about evaluating the words and the actions and the writings of dead people."

"Well, yes." Alice said. "At bottom, history is about dead people. You just don't, as a rule, normally get to ask their opinions or get them to peer-review what you write about them. It isn't as direct as that, usually. Professionally, I'm not sure if it counts."

Three women, a girl, an orang-utan and a ghost set to reading the old journals. After a while nobody thought this was unusual. Periodically, Johanna Cornelia relayed her input through either Bekki or Irena.

"She'd like us to skip over the bits she wrote when she was twelve or thirteen." Bekki said. "About being in love with a boy called Stukkie and so on."

Bekki felt sympathy for this. If you were female and nearly thirteen and you were writing your deepest innermost thoughts in a journal, you wanted it to be _private_. Not brought out as History a century after you died. Even if you got to be famous.

"We can skip the early bits?" Alice suggested. She'd been thirteen herself once. She understood. "The technical term is _juvenilia_. Limited interest, and serves only to set background details. You can safely summarise."

And so it progressed.

The group retired for lunch. Claude the butler served. He'd been aware, in a necessarily discreet way, of what was happening. Butlers had to be aware.

"I am told the accepted protocol is to set another place at Table, madam." he said, smoothly. Johanna accepted this. The Guild of Butlers, Manservants, Gentlemen's Gentlemen and Senior Domestic Servants was thorough in its training, and covered _all_ eventualities. **(4)**

Claude stepped back and addressed seemingly empty air.

"I have taken the liberty of preparing an aperitif for Deceased Madam." he said. "If you will permit me."

He struck a match and set fire to the contents of a glass. The liquid inside burnt with a flickering blue flame. And the ghost of a glass of klipdrift crossed the planes for just long enough.

Bekki watched Johanna Cornelia raise a glass with everyone, and consume it with every sign of appreciation.

 _Maar, he's good! And this is good klipdrift. It's hard to get a decent drink after you're dead. It's so hard to get the barman's attention._

Johanna sighed. It was taken as expected that Smith-Rhodes family members visiting Ankh-Morpork could descend on her for automatic and indefinite hospitality. She suspected this was taken for granted. Now, it seemed, this extended even to the dead ones. Even if she had to accept other people's word for it that the seemingly empty place was being occupied by her great-grandmother. It took some getting used to.

At least Ponder had arrived. He had blinked, re-adjusted, and accepted the extra guest, taking her presence as a different kind of normal for his family. Johanna Cornelia now had three people in the room she could speak to directly. The fourth just said " _ook_.." a lot and politely offered her a banana.

"I just wish I could see and hear you." Johanna said to the empty place. Bekki heard a wistful longing in her mother's voice.

 _I regret this too, Johanna Famke. But you've really done well for yourself. We're all proud of you. Maar, maybe one day, ja-nie?_

Bekki dutifully relayed the reply to her mother. She had a friend at school who had a completely deaf mother. Jane had to interpret the hearing world for her mum through sign language. Bekki had watched carefully to try to work out how it worked. She was learning a little. Bekki wondered if she would have to interpret the magical world, the parallel worlds overlapping this one, for her non-magical mother and evolve her own sort of sign language. Which was tricky, as she was still learning herself.

* * *

Dear beloved Auntie Mariella,

I miss you so very very much and wish you were here or I was there. I hope all is happy in beautiful-sounding Bitterfontein where the grapes grow. I love grapes. They are so yummy.

So. Lord Vetinari has a first name, as if he were a normal person like anyone else? You never stop to consider things like this. Everybody must have a first name, I suppose. Even the Patrician. But… Havelock?

Mum says "Uncle Havelock" punished you by giving you a job. I am still trying to work that out. But ordinary news first.

Let me tell you what has been happening here and give you news about my mother and my father and my sisters Famke and Ruth…

* * *

Winter was setting in over Ankh-Morpork. Bekki's schoolwork progressed by day while her witch training and the Other Things happened in the evenings and at weekends.

She still had to go to Kerk on Octeday mornings. She endured the unspeakably dreary service, knowing her parents and sisters and other members of the household, like Annaliese the nanny, had to suffer it too. She wondered why the priest was such a toad. Like Liutnant Verkramp in a clerical collar. And why people put up with him.

But Octeday afternoon, in the few hours before Dorothea served up a yummy roast dinner, saw her spending time at the Zoo. Mum always found things for her to do here. Annaliese took her little sisters to see their favourite animals. Mum, or Auntie Heidi, took her doing other things. Right now, they were tending to the needs of those animals that needed greater care and warmth in an Ankh-Morporkian winter. Bekki found herself cuddling a shivering chimpanzee baby who didn't like the cold at all. It was nice, although she remembered to hold a cloth pad under its bottom. In case of accidents, mum had said.

The Zoo staff were setting up an indoor extension to the chimp habitat that could be heated. It had taken careful design and a lot of money had had to be raised for it. Apparently Lady Sybil had contributed a lot.

Bekki realised animal work was a kind of useful training for being a witch. She'd seen loads of animals being born. She even had an accurate idea of what had to happen several months earlier to make it possible for a baby animal to be born. It sounded straightforward, if yukky when you applied it to actual _people_. She wondered why people made such a big deal of it. It was another process, like lancing a boil or dressing a wound or putting a poultice on a burn, or peoples' problems with going to the privy. Seeing practice with the Watch Witches had exposed her to a lot. She was starting to realise now that magic was the lesser part of the deal. It was _people_ who were the business of Witches.

Hence all the boil-lancing and poultices and mixing of potions and identification of herbs and what they could be used for. ( _Thank you, Davinia Bellamy_!) You paid attention. People who were relieved of pain, glad of the attention and relaxing after treatment said a lot. More than they should, sometimes. Olga and Irena and Nottie had all said, that sort of thing remains _here_. Between we witches. _Never_ to be said anywhere else.

Bekki understood why.

You are the witch. You hear everything. You get to know everything. But it goes no further than you. You gave nothing away. The price for knowing everything about everybody is that you can't tell anybody else. Except perhaps another witch.

She focused. Trying to generate more warmth in her own body and to give it to a shivering chimpanzee who was a few shivers away from hypothermia. _If I visualise a flame inside me, not that hot, it doesn't need to be, and make it bigger. Then move it out a little bit… make it a nice warm orange colour…_

You heard all sorts of things in the Watch steading. Apparently Constable Johnson was getting very friendly with the wife of Constable Previss but Constable Previss didn't know about that. And there was going to be an almighty fight when he _did_ find out…

Olga Romanoff had explained to Bekki that down here, she ceased to be a Lieutenant. Irena wasn't a Sergeant and Nottie wasn't a Flight-Constable. They very carefully took their uniforms off and wore black. They were, here, just witches. So any Watch stuff they heard, they had to lock away. Or they'd have no patients. Igor was the same too, weren't you, Igor?

"Can't help feeling Mr Vimes'll go spare, though." Nottie said. "When he finds out."

"Not our problem." Olga had said. "They were talking to Olga Romanoff, _babiuschka,_ down here. Lieutenant Olga Romanoff, Air Police and Pegasus Service, stopped at the door, and anyway _she_ lives upstairs. That's understood."

There were lots of words for Witches around the Disc. Not all of them translated as _overbearing nosey old woman_ or _trouble on a broomstick_.

Olga and Irena were _babiuschkas_. If they were Brindisian, they'd be _vecchias_. Toleda referred to _brujas_. Quirm had its _sorcières_. She, Bekki, was the _liewe heksie_ , which made sense everywhere a language like Vondalaans or Kerrigian was spoken. _Beloved Little Witch_ **.(5)** It was her family's pet name for her. Even the _living_ members of her family called her that.

Bekki liked it at the Zoo. There'd been the thing with the goat, during a holiday in Howondaland, that had convinced Ouma Agnetha that she had talent **.(6)** Ouma had then talked at Mum until she gave in. Ouma Agnetha was good at that.

When they'd got back, Mum had taken her on trips to the Zoo. She'd got to see places the paying public didn't normally get to. And Mum had, very sternly, said that if she started getting grey hairs ahead of time, she would blame it on _you,_ Rebecka.

Bekki shifted guiltily. _Good. This little thing is warming up and showing more interest in her surroundings. We can send her back to her mother soon._

Okay. She'd been told later that getting into an enclosure with lions is _not_ a sensible thing, Rebecka. But the five-year-old Bekki pointed out that she'd asked the mummy lion first, and the mummy lion had said she _could_ , so there wasn't a problem…

Johanna had turned round and yelped to see her daughter was happily playing with a litter of lion cubs, whilst the lioness had been looking on, in seeming feline disinterest, probably relieved to have a babysitter.

Then yelped again as the lioness prowled towards Bekki and gave her a quick acknowledging nuzzle, then turned away in disinterest to collect the cubs from where they'd been playing with the nice friendly human girl. _Come on, kids, time to go…_

Bekki didn't do that sort of thing any more. Much. She realised it probably wasn't a good idea. And playing with lion cubs only worked if they were very tiny. When they got bigger, they might still look cute and cuddly but by then they had teeth and claws that could _hurt_. Just common sense, really. But she could, up to a point, communicate with the animals. She could sense when they were in distress and where the distress was coming from, for instance. That was useful. And on other occasions she'd passed by the lion or tiger enclosures and said "Mummy, I wouldn't send any human keepers in there today. She's not happy. She's angry." And pointed to a lioness, sometimes a tigress, who, outwardly, seemed no different to usual. Johanna had watched intently, and recognised more subtle signs of moodiness. Danger signs. So slight you might miss them. Then said "Golems or trolls, only."

Uncle Danie worked at the Zoo too. In summer, he tended to work with his shirt off a lot. Girls tended to gather wherever he was pitching fodder to the large ruminants. Bekki hadn't been able to see _why._ It was her uncle. With his shirt off. What was special about _that?_ You pay to see my Uncle Danie with his shirt off? This baffled her.

It usually went on, with a gathering female crowd, till Senior Keeper Grinchlow would go up and say "Keeper Smith-Rhodes, you are improperly dressed! Put your shirt and tunic back on, NOW!" Some of the girls squealed with disappointment. Uncle Danie usually waited twenty minutes or so for him to go, then stripped down again, arguing he was more comfortable this way and _maar_ , when it was warm, you took your shirt off to work. He always had. Couldn't see why people made such a big deal about it.

She'd helped him sometimes. With some of the big cattle animals that were having babies. He'd shown her what to do with calving cows. It was something you learnt young on a working farm in Howondaland. Mum had reasoned it was a useful skill, when she'd set him up with a zoo job.

These days he did the same for more exotic bovines. Bekki had learnt about bovine midwifery from him. She'd helped quite a few calves into the world, of quite a few species.

Uncle Danie had also explained to her, in a matter-of-fact way, about bulls servicing cows, and about this new Ankh-Morporkian thing called _artificial insemination_ and how to go about _gathering samples._

It sounded utterly yukky, but she could see it was _practically_ yukky.

"It got invented here." Uncle Danie had said. " _Vorbei_ , your mother's got a warped mind. She tried the idea out here, then got glassblowers and artificers to make the equipment. _Maar,_ they must have given her some odd looks. And my bigsister is not a slow woman. She made sure she got the patents, and now this idea's spreading. She'll make a fortune at it. Now the horse-breeding people have cottoned on, and realised it works for them, too. Just as well. She complains bringing up you and your sisters is costing her a fortune!"

Uncle Danie had grinned a long slow grin.

"Something to tease her about. I bet she never thought she'd get a name for it." **(7)**

Bekki, now somewhere between twelve and thirteen, and beginning to dimly realise why girls paid to get into the Zoo to look at her uncle with his shirt off – not that I'd ever pay to see my actual _uncle_ with his shirt off, that's sort of _yukky_ , but I get the general idea - led a busy life. Not much empty time. But she was, she realised, really quite happy. She realised she ought to feel thankful and fortunate.

* * *

 **(1)** Bekki belatedly remembered the existence of Charles Smith-Rhodes, financier, entrepreneur, political eminence gris and general meddler, then reflected that her family probably already did. Or at least, was on the way to a 51% controlling interest.

 **(2)** On our world, think of the Zinoviev Letters, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or the Hitler Diaries. These have caused varying degrees of nastiness, bother, or just hilarity.

 **(3** ) See my Discworld Tarot short, _**The King of Swords**_. This also deals with the interpretation of history.

 **(4)** The family you serve may well have members who are vitality-challenged. You are not to discriminate on these grounds and are to accept that the Dead have their needs too. You will almost certainly be called upon to attend to the needs of deceased people. Look after them with the same diligence you give to the living.

 **(5)** _**Die Liewe Hecksie**_ is a South African animated children's show, based on a popular series of books, about the good-intentioned and slightly clueless witch of the idyllic country of Blommielaand. It's actually quite sweet and cute and plays all the clichés Up To Eleven. Lots of Saffies, apparently, grew up loving the show as a fond childhood can see why – it's got the guile-less charm and naivity you get from the best kids' tv. Available on YouTube, along with a wicked parody by comic Casper de Vries, a man who must have had a twisted childhood. Bekki is probably a lot better at being a Little Witch than Lavinia, I think. Can't find English subtitles, but not too hard to get into.

 **(6)** In my tale Gap Year Adventures, which in some respects overlaps this one.

 **(7)** The _Smith-Rhodes Device For The Selective Breeding of Livestock_ had caused Uncle Charles Smith-Rhodes a few winces when it got to Rimwards Howondaland. It sounded better if it was called a _Kunsmatige Inseminasie Toestel,_ but _die Smith-Rhodes koeifokker_ made him cringe. Then he realised how much money there was to be made, in a nation with a lot of agriculture and horse-studdery, and realised his niece and her side of the family were cornering it all. He felt that was worth a little embarrassment. His son Julian had roared with laughter and said if there was anything at all that summed up Cousin Johanna's attitude to life, this was it. And Johanna's worked out that once you've squeezed the lemon, you can sell the juice. So to speak.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 _ **Die Liewe Hecksie**_ is a South African animated children's show, based on a popular series of books, about the good-intentioned and slightly clueless witch of the idyllic country of Blommielaand. It's actually quite sweet and cute and plays all the clichés Up To Eleven. Lots of Saffies, apparently, grew up loving the show as a fond childhood memory. Available on YouTube, along with a wicked parody by comic Casper de Vries, a man who must have had a twisted childhood. Bekki is probably a lot better at being a Little Witch than Lavinia, I think. Can't find English subtitles, but not too hard to get into.


	11. N Voël in vlug

_**Strandpiel 11: G**_ _ **roei so vinnig op; vlieg in die lug**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

Bekki was finally at the Assassins' Guild School. Well, for one very special lesson. Just this once. Mum had wangled it somehow.

"Stay together, now!" Sister Mary Conception called. She was one of the younger teaching nuns, Hergenian, and quite liked by the girls at Sek's. It didn't stop them, with earnest deadpan faces, calling her "Miss". She'd put up with that in the spirit intended and say "Less of that sort of thing, now. You all know, so, to address me as "Sister"."

Today she was escorting a group of Seven Handed Sek's girls who had been invited to the Assassins' School for a Very Special Lecture. Mother Superior had agreed to the idea as, you know, a bit of an experiment, an exchange visit. And if Mary Conception is going to teach this sort of thing here, better she learns _too_. From the experts. And dear me. _Miss Conception_. How do they think of these things?

Twenty or so of what Mother insisted should be _sensible_ girls, good advertisements for the School, had been sent across the City with a teaching nun to escort. And now they were a gaggle of white blouses and raspberry-red blonketts, standing out among the all-black of the Assassins and attracting attention. Bekki was fascinated by the really old school around her, which exuded class and style and assurance from every stone and every architectural feature. She felt a pang, well, more a memory of an old pang, really, that she'd been rejected as a student here. She wondered how her life might have been if she'd come _here_ to go to school. Standing over there as one of the Assassin girls who were curiously regarding the intruders, not in a hostile way, just curious.

 _I wonder if any of them are asking themselves, right now, how it might be if their parents had sent them to Sek's…_

She'd seen her mother, in the distance. Bekki had been impressed by the aura of respect her mother projected around her. Then again, this seemed to be standard for AGS teachers wearing the purple sash. Pupils stood up straighter, made way respectfully, looked more alert and diligent, with a great big atmosphere of "Whoever Doctor Smith-Rhodes notices and shouts at, Gods, I hope it isn't _me_."

Even Sister Mary Conception had noticed this; she had an expression on her face that spoke words. Which Bekki heard as "how do they do that? I wish I could do the same with some of mine…"

There was no intermingling among the two sets of schoolgirls. Bekki didn't expect much. It was sort of tribal: different schools, different traditions, different uniforms, different everything. Different gangs. Her friend Davvie Bellamy had said hello, in an awkward sort of way, then gone back to her set. Shauna O'Hennigan had called "Don't be a stranger, now, Davvie!"

Which was as near as it could get to acknowledging friendships outside their respective schools. Out of uniform and in civilian clothes, there were friendships. But not here, in uniform. Some things were understood.

And there were challenges too. Dominance rituals. One of the Assassin schoolgirls, backed by her sniggering friends, was being a _pain_.

"I see we've got the _peasants_ in." the girl said, sneeringly. "The gods-botherers from Seven-Handed Sek's. Talk about lowering the tone and letting the hoi-polloi in for the day!"

She expanded on this theme as her gang sniggered.

Bekki gave her a Look.

 _Hou jou lyn en staan jou man,_ she thought, glaring back. She thought she recognised the girl: Carenza Venturi, a relative of the unspeakable and odious Parsifal.

"And not just hoi-polloi. Colonials. Bloody smelly _wogs_." Carenza added, nastily. She made a holding-my-nose-there's-a-bad-smell-in-the-room mime, and sniggered at Shamsa Patel, who was a Ghatian. Shamsa was excused the blonkett hat on the grounds of culture and ethnicity. She was allowed to wear a sari in the School colours and a headscarf. The other girls envied her and thought she looked exotically pretty.

Bekki took a step forward. She didn't usually like hitting people. But just this _once_ … if she was related to Parsifal, it was _justified_.

Shamsa was shuffling uneasily, not sure of what to do. Bekki felt angry about this on its own. She really didn't like bullies.

"Colonials, you say." Shauna said. Shauna was tough, street, self-assured. "Well, now there's a thing. I'm a colonial too, although I'm sneaky about it as I've got a white skin. I pass for human in a crowd."

She stepped forward and eyeballed Carenza.

"I'm just off the bog in Hergen. I'm a colshie bogtrotter reeking of peat who only eats cabbage and bacon and the odd potato. When there isn't a famine going on. But hey, let's be reasonable. Everybody knows the Famines were down to we Hergenians being lazy shiftless fecks who sat on our arses and expected to be fed."

Shauna stepped forward again.

"Nothing to do with absentee landlords like for instance the Venturis, who still wanted their bloody rents, regardless. And you know, my darling girl, when they call us a bunch of primitive tribal people who like a good fight and have a complete chip on our shoulder about Morporkians and who fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, then you know something?"

She leaned forwards and put her face very close to Carenza's.

" _They could be right_!"

She waited for Carenza Venturi to recoil slightly, then nodded to Bekki.

"And my associate here is a nasty smelly Boor from Howondaland who's never heard about soap in her whole life, isn't that right, my darling? One of another horrible tribe who nonetheless still managed to take a Morporkian army, and kick its fecking arse all the way out of Howondaland. She's a colonial too."

One of Carenza's brighter friends was looking at Bekki, who was putting a glare on. It appeared to have registered with her as to _why_ a red-haired Howondalandian who glared like that was so horribly familiar. She was trying to get Carenza's attention by tugging at her arm.

Bekki grinned. She put on a Howondalandian accent, sensing this was expected of her.

"I do not go running to my mother to solve my problems for me." she said. "My mother might teach here, _ja._ But she raised me to be self-reliant end to solve little problems like this for myself. _Maar_ , we're a self-reliant volk."

The Assassin bullies were backing off now. Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed teachers moving to the source of potential trouble.

"Shauna.." she said, in warning.

Shauna had taken a box of matches out from somewhere and was considering it thoughtfully.

"You know. The Venturi family owned a lot of estates in Hergen. Collected a lot of rents. Let a lot of people die during the Famines. Didn't matter, as long as the rent was on time. Sixty years later we had a War of Independence. We got to burn down the country seat of the Venturis. Just to make a wee tiny bit of a point."

Shauna lit a match and flicked it at Carenza, who leapt away yelping.

"Crackle crackle, boom boom, sizzle, sizzle." she said.

"What's going on here?" a voice said. Bekki was impressed with the way the matchbox suddenly disappeared.

It was one of the purple sashes. Plus Sister Mary Conception.

"We're guests in this place." the nun said. "Whatever has been happening here. _Behave_!"

The teaching nun rested her hand on the long wooden ruler tucked through her belt. Nuns wore the Rule as an essential item of dress, in much the same way Assassins wore swords. And in much the same place, so as to be able to draw quickly. This was not lost on the Assassin teacher, who was young, well, youngish, and who wore big round glasses and large impractical-looking earrings.

Bekki wasn't fooled. Teachers who wore glasses could be the biggest cows out. Evil.

"Miss Venturi." her teacher said. "Were you _making comment_ again? _Unwise_ comment? Well, it appears you've been given a lesson in what happens when you get over-confident."

Miss Gillian Lansbury looked over Bekki, Shauna and Shamsa. Bekki realised that if you knew Carenza Venturi, say by having taught her for some years, you would not need to be a genius to realise the sort of unwise comment she might make.

She looked back at Carenza Venturi. It was not a sympathetic look.

"Learn from it." Gillian said. "And any further disturbance will be punished."

"Miss O'Hennigan." Sister Mary Conception said, sternly. "You are a guest in this place. Behave like one. And if that was a box of matches I saw in your hand just now, I'm just betting there might be a packet of cigarettes in there too. Just a thought I have, you understand. Don't let me have to search you."

She patted the ruler at her waist, meaningfully. Practically every girl in the area shuddered, not just those from SHS. _Everyone_ knew what a nun with a long wooden ruler in her hand was capable of. Even Assassins.

Miss Gillian Lansbury looked down reflectively.

"If you feel you need to actually _use_ that ruler to enforce good order, Sister, then be my guest." She said. "On anyone you like, not just your own pupils. I'll support your professional judgement completely."

 _Ouch. Assassin teachers could get inventively nasty…_

The drama over, a couple of hundred girls were directed into the big lecture theatre. A group of teachers sat at the back, to observe. These included Sister Mary Conception.

And then they got The Lecture. This was the point of the day. The friendly and smiling Matron Igorina delivered it. Mercilessly. With lots of long detailed descriptions and iconograph slides.

Bekki already knew some of this stuff and had even had a little practical exposure to it, because of her ongoing Witch training, Seeing Practice, and spending time at the Zoo. She appreciated it was aversion therapy as well as teaching. But the effects on the other girls…

She also appreciated this was teaching for Sister Mary Conception too. She had been tasked, as one of the lowest nuns in the hierarchy, with delivering Personal and Social Development to SHS girls. It was just that she wasn't especially _good_ at it. It had been mortifying to watch her stumble through her own version of The Lecture, red-faced with embarrassment.

Bekki had described this to her mother that evening and had said she felt a bit sorry for the nun. Who was actually really nice and didn't deserve this. Mum had looked thoughtful and reflective. Then she'd gone off to talk to people.

A day or two later, Mother Superior had said, at Assembly, that colleagues at the Assassins' Guild School were being very kind and understanding, and we would be sending a carefully selected party there to attend a _special lecture_. If all went well and there were good reports, she hoped to send every girl in the School to sit in.

"It will be good for you." she had said.

Over a hundred girls filed quietly out of the lecture theatre at the end. Some were pale and shuddering. Matron Igorina's teaching had been _thorough._

"Faith." Shauna had said. "I can see what they're doing here. They're trying to recruit some new nuns. You know. The vow of chastity is pretty attractive after all that!"

Bekki had been relatively unaffected. The only other SHS girl to have sauntered unaffected through it all had been Joyce. She found Bekki, and asked, in puzzled tones, what all the fuss was about. You needed to know these things, and anyway, she, Joyce, already had a pretty good idea. You know, through Mum. And people at her work.

Bekki understood. Joyce was the daughter of a Seamstress. A good one, who made a living at it. Bekki had thought about this. Joyce and her sisters never went without. There was always a good dinner on the table. Their clothes were good and they each had more than one pair of shoes, none with holes in. Joyce's mum was kind, loving, caring and a really good mother to have. It was a loving home to be brought up in. So she worked a specialised sort of night shift two or three times a week. Bekki thought about this. Her own mother sometimes worked night shifts too. In her profession, it was expected.

But people still looked down on Joyce because of her mum. Shauna said that was fecken' shite, and had invited her to join the misfits, the awkward squad. The ones who didn't quite fit. Shauna's gang. The group who made their teachers wary and watchful.

Bekki realised it didn't make a difference at all. Her mother had killed people for a living. It didn't make her a bad person. Not at all. So Joyce's mother did _something else_ to men for a living. So what. We all had to live.

Well, apart from some of Mum's customers. At least customers of Joyce's mum got to walk away afterwards. Which might make Joyce's mum _more_ moral? Bekki pushed it away. These were big questions.

* * *

And then Bekki had another milestone in her life. She did her first birthing. Solo. It had actually been Shauna's mum. Shauna lived in a big, chaotic, but loving, household. The O'Hennigans didn't have too much money to clink together, but they managed. Shauna's dad was a wiry little man who worked on building sites. He'd managed to father nine children. Shauna's mum was big with what would be the tenth. She said, dismissively, she was used to all that sort of thing by now. And your mum only has three, darling? Small family. Ah well. Bekki had been a guest in the chaos, with Shauna's older brothers and sisters bringing in what they could to help out, her younger siblings playing about their feet, living in a sort of cheerful Hergenian poverty and living from day to day. Any interaction between the siblings generally involved a physical rough-and-tumble, and they tended to use swear words almost as punctuation.

Bekki liked it there. She also really liked the diet of mutton-and-veg stew, baked potatoes, or bacon-and-cabbage. It was different to Dorothea's meals at home, more basic, but it was warm and filling and from the heart.

And then, one evening, it had started happening. Shauna's dad had rushed out to see if he could get somebody from the Lady Sybil. Bekki realised, with horror, that having a Clacks link at home was the exception rather than the norm. Here, they'd have to summon emergency help the old-fashioned way. Bekki focused on getting Shauna to assist with helping her mother up to a bedroom, and detailing other family members to do other things that were necessary. If only to get them out of the way.

Bekki, thirteen, had realised. And taken charge. She'd done the theory. She knew what to do. She hoped. And the important thing was to take charge. And in the next couple of hours, she knew she'd taken one big giant step closer to becoming a Witch.

Eventually, a medical crew from the Lady Sybil turned up with a midwife. To find they'd missed the birth by a long way. The mother was sitting up in bed with a carefully bathed baby daughter, looking tired and happy. A teenage witch was sitting by the bed with a thousand-yard stare. Somehow she'd done it. Don't ask her _how_.

"You're too late." Mrs O'Hennigan said to the midwife. "This bossy little madam took over, and started shouting at people. Told my Shauna to stop flapping around and to feck off out of it if she had nothing to contribute. And she fecked off, too, so she did. Without arguing."

She looked over at Bekki.

"You needed the odd little prompt, darling. But you did well. I reckon _bossy little madam_ is another word for _witch_."

The child was called Rebecka. This was expected too.

* * *

"So you birthed a child." Godsmother Irena said. "Well done. Now get cracking on mixing up those salves."

Bekki sighed. Olga Romanoff smiled slightly.

"What? You're expecting a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates or something and the hearty congratulations of every Witch on the Disc who'll line up to shake your hand? Doesn't work that way, _devyuschka_. You were there where you were needed and you did the job in front of you. That's witchcraft. Now those salves aren't going to make themselves."

"Didn't do badly, though." Irena agreed.

"Not a complete disaster, no." said Olga. "You get better at it with every one you do. And it was a straightforward birthing with an experienced mother. Just be thankful it wasn't a bad one. That's when you know if you're a witch or not."

"Did you make a wish?" Irena asked. Bekki shook her head.

"Tcch. Just remember to attend the Naming. Good manners. And put a Blessing on. You'll know what to say."

"Oh, and put the kettle on sometime soon, Bekki?" Irena added. "Get the samovar going. _Spassibo_."

Just another evening at the Watch Steading…

* * *

But at least, after doing her first birthing, Godsmother Irena had decided it was time for other aspects of her training. Irena had sat down over a drink with mum and dad. Bekki had not been included. Mum had been anxious after the birth, expressing misgivings about Bekki growing up too soon. Irena had explained that a lot of witches start younger and thirteen, out in somewhere like Lancre or the Chalk, is thought of as a bit _late_ to do a birthing. Mistress Aching of the Chalk, by all accounts, had done one when she was eleven. And by the way, Ponder, she might be dropping by sometime soon. Is it alright if she meets Bekki?

Irena had then persuaded her parents considering Another Thing. Bekki had been summoned out to the back garden. Her parents were there. Mum looked anxious. Dad looked proud.

She saw Irena with a broomstick that looked longer and heavier than the usual model. It was hovering in neutral a few feet above the grass.

Irena, without ceremony, handed over a set of thick flying gloves, a set of goggles, and one of the swept-back slightly truncated pointy hats that Watch witches wore. It was Bekki's first pointy hat. She turned it in her hands for a moment or two.

"Wear a thick coat." she said. "It can get cold up there. And put these on."

And, a little later,

"No. _Front_ seat. I'm going pillion. Don't get any big ideas, though. I've got an over-ride if you get into trouble. Dual control. Twin-seat trainer."

And a broomstick ascended, slowly, uncertainly, and shakily. She looked down to see her parents waving her off. Bekki noted how her mother looked so _small_ and _worried_ from up here. But at least Dad, who knew about flying, appeared to be reassuring her. Then she started paying attention to things like _trim_ and _banking_ and _artificial horizon_. All the new vocabulary items that Irena was expecting her to get to grips with, very quickly. She wished there was a handy glossary somewhere to refer to.

Ankh-Morpork started to spread out all around her, unfolding as she ascended, and she looked down at her city from above. She wondered if over there, those were the Ramtop Mountains beginning to show, in the unguessable distance to the Hubwards. And over there, the grey-green expanse of the Circle Sea with small and frail looking ships on it…

"We're not up here for sight-seeing, _devyuschka_." said the voice from behind her. "Focus, Raise the nose. Should be a few degrees above the bristles. Keep it raised. That take-off was bloody awful, by the way. It _will_ improve. Now show me how you'd go about doing a starboard turn. On the flat. We can do a climbing turn later. Just the basics for now. Go!"

And her flying lessons began.

"You'll go solo when you're fit to." Godsmother Irena said. "When I think you're ready. Which, based on your performance so far, will not be for a _long_ time yet. This is an expensive precision broomstick, it's the property of the Air Police, and you would not _believe_ the paperwork to be filled in if some dumb novice pilot tries to fly it underground, and wrecks one."

Irena smiled a reassuring smile.

"And I don't intend to be the one who has to go to your mother and say _"err… Johanna? Was Rebecka insured?"_ or _"At least you've still got two other daughters, Johanna."_ Your mum is the sort of lady who would, in those circumstances, be extremely inclined to shoot the messenger. No doubt very accurately and with extreme prejudice. And I do have plans to live a long happy life."

Irena patted Bekki's forearm.

"So it's dual-seaters with an instructor. For however long it takes. Now shall we clock up another hour?"

In this way, Bekki started clocking up flying hours. Irena insisted she fill in a log-book, as it was a vital discipline. She dutifully completed it after every flight. Sometimes Olga or Nottie or one of the Service's part-time pilot-witches took her up. Every Pegasus had its pilot. The only people who could ride the flying horses were witches. It was understood that the informal price for a Lancre Witch to pay, on bonding to her Pegasus, was to fly for the Pegasus Service. Not every Service pilot was also a watchwoman. Quite a few also ran Steadings in Lancre or the Chalk. This was accepted. Those witches were rostered to work for the Service as part-time pilots, for one or two shifts a week. They did their share of the long runs with a navigating Feegle, as authorised representatives either of Lord Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork or of King Verence of Lancre, or sometimes of both.

These part-time pilots were younger witches who'd graduated from the informal training school in Lancre. Half the time they were only a few years older than Bekki. The witches she flew with on these occasions, to get her broomstick hours up and build her experience, were happy to tell her about the ever-changing training coven, a sort of informal University. How it operated, how trainee Witches were rotated around steadings and supervising senior witches for an indefinite period, until they were judged Ready to take on a Steading of their own.

"Daresay it'll happen to _you_ before too long." Deleria Tremmence remarked as they flew. "Although you've already had a lot of training with the girls here."

Bekki gathered that the average starting age for girls in the Lancre School was usually twelve or thirteen. She frowned, considering this. She was tied to SHS until the age of at least sixteen, when she'd be taking the usual school-end exams in the usual sorts of subjects. So she wasn't likely to be going to Lancre till her schooling was over. Which would make her impossibly old and possibly _geriatric_ compared to her peers there.

Deleria made a guess at her thoughts.

"Olga and Irena were late arrivals." she said. "In the first coven. The one that had _Tiffany Aching_ in it. Oh, they were so lucky! They'd had a couple of years studying with a Witch in Far Überwald. Then they spent a year crossing the continent to get to Lancre. They were both over fifteen when they got to knock on Mistress Weatherwax's back door. Ask them. They said they'd been part of the group, but just stood back and did their own thing and let the younger girls bitch-fight it out as to who got to be leader. Foreign and fifteen, you see, among lots of local girls of twelve or thirteen. Didn't quite fit. The others din't quite know what to do with them, and by all accounts they told Anngramma Hawkins flat-out that if she tried it on with them, they'd drop her in the _govno_ from a great height. Head-first. So Annagramma just pretended they didn't exist, and they were happy to let her do that. When Sam Vimes passed through and said he was short of pilots for the Air Police – well, they joined the Watch. Just to get to spend all their time flying. And here they are now."

"How do you get a Pegasus?" Bekki asked. The flying horses fascinated her. She spent as much time as she could get away with in the stables with them, grooming, feeding, and mucking out. But she'd discovered that although they'd let her mount and sit on their backs, they were deaf and unresponsive to any commands or prompts. Bekki, who'd been riding since she was five, felt put out by this.

"Natural you should try." Olga Romanoff had said. "Don't blame you. But she'll let you sit up there for as long as you like. And that's all you can ever do. The only person a Pegasus will respond to is the witch she's bonded to. Right now, as far as she's concerned, you're just a saddlebag. Neither here nor there. _You_ are not her witch. That's all there is to it. Now over here, I see a wheelbarrow and a shovel. _And nobody's using either_."

Deleria had explained. There was a very special horse-stud in Lancre. The original two Pegasii, one male, one female, had both ended up doing what came naturally with perfectly normal unmagical horses. The Pegasus stallion had been quite enthusiastic about it, in fact, and had covered lots of mares. She, Deleria didn't need to draw a picture? Anyway. Most of the resulting foals had apparently been just normal wingless horses. But every so often you got a foal with folded-back wings. A special, precious, horse. And it had been discovered that if a witch got in first with water and fodder – that foal would then bond to that witch. Who _could_ fly the new Pegasus.

Lord Vetinari had acted quickly, made a treaty with King Verence, and in essentials, it had been agreed that all Pegasii foaled in Lancre were the property of Verence, King of Lancre. Who then graciously leased them out to Ankh-Morpork. Ankh-Morpork them paid generously to lease the royal property, on the understanding _no other nation got them_.

But the wingèd horses _really_ belonged to the witches they were bonded to. This was understood too. Those witches then graciously consented to fly them on missions for Ankh-Morpork and Lancre. Getting to see the world was a draw, too. Olga Romanoff was well thought of in witchdom, and was seen as the flying Witch par excellence. Irena Politek wasn't far behind. And Ankh-Morpork was _the_ acknowledged centre of the Discworld's broomstick technomancy. Any witch with an interest in flight wanted to come here. To learn. To see and to fly the best. To be at the cutting edge of flight. Working for the Pegasus Service or the Air Police, even part-time as a Special, was the necessary pay-off.

"That's how it works, basically." Deleria said. "For me, I run a steading in Sore Bottom. With the neighbouring hamlet of Butt's Rest. Don't ask. Please. Getting to fly for one or two days a week or to run long missions with a Feegle navigator – well, that's _my_ time. It's rest and relaxation. I like it. Keeps me sane. And if the mission is giving a few more flying hours to a trainee witch, that's good too."

They were drinking tea, sitting on the parapet of Pseudopolis Yard, watching the city go by underneath. Bekki let her legs swing, considering the drop. She was aware of a group of trainee Assassins, edificeering the side of the Opera House. She was pretty sure that was Godsmother Alice supervising them. That long lean tall figure was pretty much unmistakeable, chiding and encouraging her group of students in their climb. **(1)** She watched the Assassins for a while, feeling neither regret or jealousy for a life missed, a life that might have been. That was how things _might_ have been. Once. But she was certain she'd never have learnt to fly. Assassins, clever and resourceful people that they were, could not fly.

Bekki smiled. She thought she was getting the better deal, all things considered. She could fly. _They_ had to climb.

* * *

 **(1)** Assassins did not edificeer on the sides or roof of Pseudopolis Yard. It was held to be prudent.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**


	12. Vriendskap vir altyd

_**Strandpiel 12:**_ _ **Vriendskap vir altyd**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

 _ **In which Bekki discovers all about economic inequality. And feels guilty about it.**_

Bekki thought her friendship with Shauna O'Hennigan was like several worlds meeting all at once. Bekki was an Ankh-Morporkian with Howondalandian roots. Shauna was an Ankh-Morporkian with Hergenian heritage. They even put up the two flags together on Bekki's bedroom wall to symbolise this. The orange, white and blue of Rimwards Howondaland, with its intricate central band that carried the smaller inset flags of Sto Kerrig, Ankh-Morpork and the first Boer Republik. Crossed with the night-blue of Hergen, which had a pattern of stars on it, a constellation that symbolised hope and freedom. **(1)**

"The good old Starry Trough." Shauna said. She looked around her at the big spacious bedroom. She was still getting used to the idea that a girl could have a bedroom all of her own. And a big bed she slept in on her own and didn't have to share with three of her sisters. It was something she'd never have thought possible.

"Doesn't it get lonely and scary at night, Bekki, sleeping all on your own?" she asked, curiously.

Bekki had never really thought about this till she met Shauna. She was wondering what sort of Hell it might be to share a bed with Famke and Ruth at night. She loved her sisters, even Famke, but she _still_ wanted her own space at night. She considered this an Inalienable Right of Teenage Girl. Each of the three sisters had her own bedroom. Shauna had blinked disbelievingly at this. The sheer space and scale of Spa Lane compared to the cramped shared terraced house in Dimwell, which even she considered had too many people living in it.

The sound of piano scales drifted up from downstairs. Inexpertly and indifferently played.

"Famke." they both said, together.

Bekki smiled slightly. Famke had been told. In no uncertain terms. One of the hangovers from the old Assassins' Guild School, from the days when a far smaller number of exclusively male pupils had been leisurely instructed in how to be Gentlemen Who Inhume, was the Concordat insistence that the Assassin, being a person of breeding, culture and refinement, should be proficient in at least _one_ musical instrument. Or to show musical talent and appreciation. The Guild insisted on this.

Famke had therefore better start getting _good_ at a musical instrument. Starting _now_ , Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. Your Aunt Mariella got around this one by taking opera singing lessons. She was _good_ at it. She has a singing voice. The Guild accepted that ticked the boxes. But, Famke Cornelia, _your_ singing voice is at best reminiscent of a strangled duck. However, we _do_ have a piano. _This_ is a piano stool. It opens up. You will find there is sheet music inside. Then close the lid, sit down at it, and stop complaining. _Dankie._

The piano had apparently arrived with the house when it had been newly occupied. Great-Aunt Friejda had advised on furnishing. Her niece and her husband were people of means and social position. People of means and social position must have a piano. It was _expected_. Do not be difficult about this, Johanna.

The piano, a baby grand, had arrived. It had largely gathered dust underneath a protective sheet. Once, the Lancre witch Nanny Ogg had visited town, and stayed with Auntie Emmie next door. Auntie Emmie had seemingly innocently said Johanna next door has a piano.

After Nanny Ogg and Uncle Danie had taught each other a rafter of songs they knew, with enthusiastic piano accompaniment, Mum had then kept the bloody thing covered up. Made a point of it, in fact. Bekki had been very tiny at the time. She vaguely remembered the funny old lady she'd first met when Daddy had taken her to Lancre had sung something odd about hedgehogs. Uncle Danie had introduced her to the one about Auntie Tina. Uncle Danie and Mrs Ogg had really bonded.

The piano had stayed covered till now. Famke had whinged and grumbled about a waste of time that could have been spent doing _useful_ things with some interesting weapons. Mum had put her foot down. And pointed out that playing piano teaches you about dexterity with your fingers. Which is _useful_ to an Assassin. A transferable skill.

So two or three times a week, the household were treated to scales and simple themes, inexpertly played. Except when…

After a brief pause, the piano started up again. This time any discordance and bum notes were a thing of the past. The music became Fondel's _Ein Kleine Schadenfreudemusik._ A sonata, beautifully played.

"Ruth." Bekki said. Shauna nodded appreciatively.

"Faith. That little girl has got it. More than her big sister does."

" _Either_ of her big sisters." Bekki agreed. Bekki felt glad she was excused piano. Mum allowed Ruth, who would have patiently been waiting her turn, a go on the piano when she felt Famke had suffered enough. Or that everybody else had suffered enough from Famke.

"Uncle Fergus plays the bloody accordion." Shauna said, and shuddered. "Mind you, Auntie Kate's a decent hand on the fiddle."

Bekki nodded. She waited for the punch-line.

"But Auntie Kate's Thieves' Guild. She plays the violin a bit, too. When she's not out thieving."

Shauna stretched out in the big chair. Bekki got a huge bed to herself. A floor you could see. With space between the bed and the walls. With an actual carpet. A desk to do her homework at. Bookshelves. With books. _And_ a big comfy chair to sit in. _All to herself_. Sweet Sek and His Mother.

"I'm not jealous or anything." Shauna said, and this was true so far as it went. "But all this. Big house. Big garden. And _servants._ Sek. Takes some getting used to."

Meeting social inequality head-on was something that made Bekki feel guilty and a little bit embarrassed. She wondered if she was just a rich kid with too much privilege who was just playing at it. You know. Going to the sort of school which, while it wasn't proletarian as such, and certainly wasn't so far downmarket as to be in the gutter, certainly accepted _everybody_. It nominally charged fees. But she suspected the nuns quietly said "don't worry about it. It's more important your daughter gets an education." to a lot of families. She couldn't see the Assassins' School doing that sort of thing. Much.

She also suspected her parents paid quite a lot more than the accepted school fees for three daughters. Just to help out. SHS relied a lot on charitable donations and benefactors. To keep it afloat. Mum had said to Dad one night "Well, you know, Ponder. We budgeted this amount for Bekki to go to the Guild School. She isn't going there now. It's not as if the money isn't there. Even if the fees for the convent school are so much less than the Guild School would have charged. If it helps out."

She also suspected Uncle Julian, her Godsfather, had discreetly chipped something in. He was custodian of a family bank account in Ankh-Morpork. Which had _lots_ of money in it. He thought it was a good school too. Which it was. The teaching nuns were really good at what they did. There could be worse. Even if Sister Maria Ignatia Consummatus Deorum **(2)** tended to smell of juniper-based perfume sometimes. She could still deliver Überwaldean Language and Literature and had once taught them a few songs. There was, she had said, nothing like The Sound of Music. Even if it was delivered in a voice scented by schnapps.

Shauna stretched lazily in the chair.

"I don't think I'm _ever_ on my own." Bekki said, with perfect honesty. Most of the time, the people and guardians around her were physically living in _this_ world. with a side-serving of deceased ancestors who periodically popped in to act as her spirit guides. She had not told her friend, yet, about the Johannas. She was wondering how to phrase this if it was necessary. _By the way, I've got relatives who call by every so often..._

Klipdrift, the huge Boerboel mastiff, lifted his snout and panted. Shauna reached down, not very far down, to pet him. Sometimes one of the dogs slept in her room at night. Not always; they had three young mistresses to choose from. They couldn't be everywhere. But any night intruder would soon discover they were in trouble. the house was geared up for this. in lots of ways. Boerboels were just the _start_ of it. Bekki remembered the thing with the bogeyman...

"That's true." she said. "This big lad here at night to guard you. You don't do small pets, do you?"

"Not 'alf!" said another voice.

Shauna jumped. The thing about Grindguts The Destroying Demon had been very carefully explained to her. That despite appearances, he really was a nice guy. The imp was sitting on the back of the chair, his powerful stumpy little legs and pointy tail swinging.

"We all keep an eye on Bekki by night, miss." the imp said. "And on her sisters. Ruth's OK with me and likes having me around, so I might spend time in her room. Talk to her. Nice kiddie. But that bloody Famke's a bugger. Doesn't believe I exist so she won't talk to me. Little sod."

Grindguts was now accepted as a family sprite. Mum had accepted the inevitable. He sometimes spent time with Dad down in the study. "You know, talking magic stuff. Imp to wizard. He's OK, your dad. Your mum still scares me, though."

Grindguts brought out a tiny pack of cigarettes and a box of matches. Bekki cleared her throat emphatically.

"Go outside, Grindguts." she said. "Sit on the windowsill if you're going to smoke. Thanks."

Her familiar grumbled, but trotted over to the window anyway.

"He's _too_ familiar." Bekki said, tolerantly.

"I never peek when you're getting dressed!" the imp shouted. "Not that I'm bothered. One way or the other. Different species!"

"I would be!" Shauna shouted back. "Especially since I'm staying over tonight, you wee green gobshite! Keep them feckin' eyes in your head when I'm in the nip, you hear me?"

"Do you kiss your mother with a mouth like that?" Grindguts called back.

"Away and shite, you little get!" Shauna called back, laughing. "Besides, me mother cusses _worse_. Where do you think I learnt to fecken' swear in the first bloody place?"

Bekki laughed too. Shauna's impressive vocabulary had caused her parents to wince a lot. Although she had learnt to self-censor around her friend's family. Mum had quietly insisted.

Shauna had toned it down. She realised she had to adjust to stay a part of her friend's family. She'd also learnt some interesting Vondalaans words in passing, she had to admit. She had added these to her lexicon and words like " _bliksem_!" and " _voetsaak_!" and " _fokke_!" could be heard jostling for swear-box time alongside the Hergenian. Bekki's family could also let a few fly in unguarded moments.

She slept over at Bekki's as often as she could. Sometimes Davvie Bellamy joined them. Shauna conceded that the speckky little blonde girl, the nerdy sort, had her own likeability too. Even if she didn't cuss and was shocked at the language. They took the dogs for walks together. Sometimes Joyce from SHS would join them, or Shamsa, or those two nice-looking lads, the Quirmian ones, who weren't stuck-up at all with their head up their own arses like a lot of bloody Assassins. Faith, those Quirmian lads knew a few interesting words too. Why didn't they teach this sort of Quirmian in school?

Bekki had spotted a few other issues too. Shauna had returned with her after an afternoon up the Tump walking Klipdrift and Rooibuis, two girls each with a massive mastiff on a lead. It had been damp and muddy. She had realised when Shauna had been audibly squelching as she walked. Her friend had tried to make light of it. But her socks were soaked right through. And her _shoes_ …

Bekki realised she'd only ever seen her friend in one pair of shoes, shabby but serviceable. Until now. A dreadful and horrifying thought struck her. And Second Thoughts kicked in. The realisation that her friend was poor. And proud. And already felt intimidated by the surroundings Bekki lived in. The very, very, worst thing she could do to her friend was to be seen as offering charity. The rich kid being _kind_ and _understanding_ to the poor one. It would be worse than sneering at her poverty. Much worse.

You really need to dry your feet." Bekki said. "And there are things I can do. From the witching. Wet damp feet get all sorts of little problems. Those shoes and socks need to dry out, for one thing. Shauna, would you let me do your feet? It'll really help me with the witching. I'd be really grateful!"

Later on, after a session of practical chiropody that Shauna desperately needed, Bekki suggested you wear something of mine. You know, while those wet clothes dry, and those shoes dry out completely. I think we might have the same shoe size. Want to try?

Shauna had been consternated to see so many pairs of shoes in the same place. All belonging to the same girl. And none of them with holes in. When she left to go home, she was still wearing a pair of everyday boots Bekki thought she could afford to lose. Probably. She'd still insisted on taking the old wrecked and full of holes ones with her. In a bag.

As soon as she could, Bekki had a long talk with her mother. Mum would know what to do.

There'd been a parent-teacher evening at SHS. Bekki didn't know much of the details. But Dad had brought Mum home, eventually. Apparently wine and cheese had been provided. After a while, there'd been less cheese and more wine and the Quirmian bread provided to go with the cheese had been barely touched.

Dad had been reluctant to go into details. But apparently Mum and Shauna's mum and some of the other mothers, like Joyce's mum, even Mrs Patel whose husband was a chef at the Curry Gardens, had kind of bonded over the wine. _Really_ bonded. There'd been a lot of shrieking and merriment. Those fathers who had attended had winced and tagged on to pick up the pieces and ensure their wives got home in one piece. Or in the case of Mum, that other people she encountered remained in one piece. Mum could get tetchy after a drink.

Bekki closed her eyes. Shauna's Gang were a big item at School. Now it seemed their mothers, their actual mothers, were forming a gang of their own. The dreaded phrase _minge-drinking_ had been spoken.

After Bekki had helped little Rebecka O'Hennigan into the world, Mum had sent a courtesy package over, of all the sort of things that were helpful to a mother with a new baby. She had pointed out that her oldest daughter had been midwife and the child had been named after her, so it seemed sort of _appropriate_ , really. Bekki had thought about this. Maybe mum knew, or had worked it out, that sometimes people needed a helping hand. She'd met Shauna, after all. And this was a nice tactful well-chosen way of doing it. Thanks, mum. But Shauna herself now needed a discreet, tactful and well-timed hand.

One Saturday, Mum had taken the girls out clothes-buying. She had said, in passing "Three kids, and no Annaliese. I might need another pair of hands. Coming, Shauna?"

Shauna had tagged on. She'd had a quiet word of her own with Famke, who was being a bit sulky. Apparently the quiet word had been along the lines of "Zip it, or I'll rip your ears off." Famke had zipped it. Then started treating Shauna with respect. And when it came to buying new shoes and boots and things and clothes for School, Mum had got _everybody_ kitted out. No fuss, no drama. Shauna had been treated as one of the family. Even a slight but noticeable patina of caked-on Dimwell had gone. Mum had sorted that one out by saying that you're a house-guest in a place with maids. Take advantage. I would. Eve, show Shauna a bathroom, would you?

Nicely done. Other people might have said "Show her what a bathroom is and explain the concept in nice simple words, with illustrations". Mum had just said "you might have noticed I employ maids. Guests get maid service. You're staying over as a house-guest. Knock yourself out."

And what Bekki had noticed was a little problem with a lingering odour was solved. She'd been too diffident to mention it to the friend who was sharing a room with her. _I mean, how do you approach it? I never saw a bathroom in her house. There's a shared pump in the street. There's a boiler, but that kind of depends on being able to heat it all the time if you want hot water for washing in. She probably knows, but it's not for want of realising there's a problem. And I really don't think Dimwell's got any public baths. I've never seen any._

Bekki pondered this, Irrelevantly, she wondered if _pondering_ was a fortunate word, given who her father was. _To ponder: to approach a problem like my father does. To really seriously over-intellectualise it, go round in circles a few times, and then you take a very simple answer and difficult it up, using ten times as many multi-syllabic words as it needs. Wizard-think. It doesn't sound right till it's all dressed up in words._

Then she felt guilty for thinking that way. Dad was a genius. She knew that. And under pressure, he was capable of getting to the right answer very, very, quickly by the shortest route. That was why he was a really good Wizard. _Maybe Unseen University does that to a person. You get lots of time and leisure to over-think things and get intellectual about them. Well, Mum keeps him practical. And he makes her pay more attention to all the scientific details. She speeds him up, he slows her down. That works._

Bekki considered what she was realising. Especially when seeing practice with the Witches. What she had at home was _rare._ Central heating, indoor toilets, bathrooms – more than one. Running piped water. A private Clacks. She wondered if on other worlds parents would be driven nuts by daughters who were on the Clacks all the time to their friends. Or whatever they had on those worlds that was like as Clacks **.(3)** Bekki, being honest with herself, suspected that if any of her friends were on the Clacks, they'd be using it all the time. However, she'd discovered she was the only girl in her class with the Clacks. Meaningless, when you had nobody to talk to on it. Even things she'd taken for granted, like a bedroom of her own. Even three square meals a day with named meat. Soap and toothpaste just appeared in the bathroom when it was called for. And things like shampoo. For every girl like her who had them, a hundred had some but not all, or even none, at home. It made her feel guilty.

Shauna had come back, gleaming and well-scrubbed. Bekki thought she saw money pass from Mum to Eve.

"Faith," her friend said. "I feel like the lady of the fe… the lady of the manor after that."

In bed that night – they shared the big bed, Shauna felt more comfortable this way – Bekki tentatively asked how she felt about it all. Did she feel she was being taken over? Made into, I don't know, somebody's project? Like a lab experiment?

Shauna had taken her time before replying.

"Don't be a fecken' eejit, Bekki. I know what you're saying. But your mum is doing all the things my mum would do if she had the money and a bigger house in a nicer spot. Doesn't mean my mum's useless. Not at all. But there's ten of us for her to get around. Your mum's okay. And you know what? I'm glad she is! _I'm really glad somebody's taking care of me._ Sounds soft as shite, but that's how I feel."

Shauna had rolled over in bed and kissed her friend.

"You're bloody great, you freckled carrot-haired gobshite! You're alright!"

Bekki changed the subject.

"What did you say to Famke? One minute she's all "why do we have to have that girl here, she talks funny and she smells". Next minute, she's your best friend forever."

Shauna grinned.

"Oh, after I threatened to rip her ears off and shove them down her gob if she didn't behave herself, I showed her how to deliver a really painful Agatean burn and a surefire dead leg. Me brother taught me. I've promised her that if she's good, or failing that, if she doesn't get caught, I'll show her a Wet Willie and how to deliver a wedgie."

 _That_ figured.

* * *

Troubled, Bekki discussed things with the Watch witches. For once, the three principal pilots were all on the ground. It didn't happen all that often, but it wasn't vanishingly rare either. Other fliers were doing the Pegasus long-hauls that day.

Olga, Irena and Nottie waited while Bekki passed the teacups round, then heard her out. Bekki told the story. Olga nodded to Nottie. Nottie nodded back, tugged her Watch tunic back on to denote she was on duty, and left the room.

"Hmm." Irena said. "You know the religious people say "the poor will always be with you"?"

She looked at Bekki.

"Unfortunately, they're right. And if you want to discuss the theology of that saying in various major religions, I can get Visit down here if you like. No? Wise."

"I know. And Shauna's my friend. And I like her family!"

"You like _everybody_ , Bekki." Irena said, gently. "Well, apart perhaps from Parsifal Venturi. You're going to have to learn to detach more. It helps you stay sane. And look. We live in a city where the majority of people live in less than ideal conditions. Some people, a lot, live in disgusting conditions. I'm in the Watch too, _devyuschka_. I've been in homes where you have to wipe your feet on the way out. Where some people live in – well, squalor. Most people make the best of what they have. Like your friends the O'Hennigans. If they _could_ find better, they _would_. But that doesn't make them unique. It makes them _typical_. And I see what you're getting it. You see the bad conditions and the overcrowding and the lack of proper sanitation facilities. People working too long in crappy jobs. _Of course_ that makes them less healthy and more likely to get diseases. You saw the state of your friend's feet, that she'd been covering up for a long time, because she thought she just had to live with it. And that was down to worn-out shoes in the rain, damp grubby house, and lack of opportunity to have a bath. Then you wonder if as a Witch you're just pissing in the wind. For every one thing you can fix, there are ten more coming along that you can't.

"I mean. I'm a Watchwoman too. I get that if people had better lives with better housing and less crappy jobs there might just be a little less crime. _Might_. But right now I see it twice over. One as a Witch and once in the Watch. And let me tell you, kid, we deal with it both ways round. We deal with things as they _are_. How we _want_ them to be is something for another time. _We just do the job that's in front of us. In the here-and-now._ If you can make things better for your friend, that's great. But do not beat yourself up about things you can't fix. Knowing when you can make a difference is part of being a witch. Wish I could wave a magic wand, and drop this into your head."

"She's right." Olga said. "And let me tell you what else is in your head right now, Bekki. I had it too. You've got a great big attack of Rich Kid Guilt going on. I mean. _Govno_. I was born into serious privilege. My father is a Grand Duke. I'd only have got more privilege if he'd been Tsar of All The Peoples, you know? Then I started waking up how much _poorer_ just about everybody else was. I'd seen _kulaks._ Serfs. Peasants. I just hadn't paid that much attention to them. Then when the magic started and I knew I had to do something with it or explode, and I went to the local _babiuschka_ for advice and discovered she had one other pupil, and I realised what being a witch meant – that you had to be a Witch for _everybody_ – I had to get up to speed with how the majority of people lived. Very quickly."

"She met her first kulak." Irena said. "The old _babiuschka_ 's other pupil witch. A serf and a peasant. _Me_."

"Indeed." Olga said. "A spiky, attitudinal, mouthy little brat of a kulak who should have been knouted. And before Irena says it, I _was_ a haughty aristocratic bitch with her head stuffed full of _govno_ who quite possibly needed to be on the losing end of a good revolution, and to be put up against a wall and crossbowed with the rest of them."

The two grinned at each other.

"Filthy kulak." Olga said.

"Arrogant aristo." Irena said.

"I'm glad I never knouted you." Olga said.

"I'm glad the Revolution hasn't happened yet." Irena said.

The two old friends clasped hands.

"We made friends. Anyway. As a student witch and pupil of the _babiuschka_ , I got to see practice in her steading. And what I saw shocked and chilled me. I realised how fortunate and privileged my life had been, how all the things I took for granted did not apply to other peoples' lives. Not at all. I felt like a silly little rich girl indulging a whim. Not a serious witch."

"But you weren't." Irena said. "Playing at it, I mean. You had _witch_ in you, right at the start. I saw that. And at the time I was not inclined to be your best friend. Not at all."

They both reached towards the samovar.

"You two are getting more and more Far Überwaldean. Or Zlobenian or something." Bekki said. "And for some reason I'm thinking of cherry orchards. With seagulls flying over them. Don't ask me why."

"Melancholy. It's a big thing with our people." Olga said. "A sort of magic, in its way. I'm just surprised you're not getting an image of three sisters sitting in a room being generally gloomy. That crops up a lot. But where were we? Bekki. I got into doubting. Guilt. Thinking that everything was due to an accident of birth, Wondering why I'd got all the advantages when other people hadn't. Feeling guilty I had the good things in abundance when others did not. And asking myself – if the lottery of birth had put me somewhere else without those advantages, who would I be with those advantages stripped away? And that's a frightening thing. You end up doubting yourself. Denying your own strengths. And that is fatal, for a witch."

Irena shrugged.

"I told her. _Somebody_ has to have those advantages. I'd prefer it to have been me, obviously, but it wasn't. She had no choice in the matter. She should give thanks for her own good fortune and then do what we all have to do – make the best from the resources we are given. Why feel guilty about what you had no power over and didn't ask for? Makes no sense."

Bekki considered this.

"Thank you." she said.

Nottie returned.

"I checked Records." she said.

Olga nodded to Bekki.

"Privileged Watch information, _devyuschka_." she said. "Hear it, but do not divulge it."

She nodded to Nottie to carry on.

"The O'Hennigan family of Dimwell." she said. "Came up largely clean. Couple of minor misdemeanours by the father, basic drunk and disorderly. Nothing serious. Older sons suspected of theft and fencing stolen property. Nothing proven. One aunt in Thieves' Guild, one older daughter associated with the Seamstresses, otherwise clean."

Bekki compared this to what she knew. Shauna's two older brothers Donal and Davey. Well, she wouldn't be surprised. They looked sharp. Her older sister, one she hadn't met yet, a Seamstress. Couldn't rule it out. And Aunt Kate was a fiddler. Makes sense.

"So nothing there you need to be aware of, Bekki." Olga said. "Apart from to stop feeling guilty about your parents being well-off. That's not your doing. Besides, your mum and dad got to be well-off through their own hard work. They didn't cheat, lie, connive or steal and they didn't get any inheritance. Your _dad_ never killed anyone. Your mother... well, if you look at her career, after a while she started doing the sort of Guild jobs that _didn't_ involve inhuming anyone. What they call Soft Assassination. All the _other_ things the Guild trains people up to do. Then she started making legitimate money doing other things. Which pays for you and your sisters to have a bloody good start in life. Just be thankful. And now we've sorted that one out, you can start being witchy. Right, what's next?"

* * *

 **(1)** The first proposed flag of the Irish Republic was a dark-blue field carrying the constellation of the Plough, symbolising freedom, Destiny, limitless bounds, and good honest down-to-earth agriculture. Seems to fit better here than the tricolour that was eventually adopted.

 **(2)** Mother Superior had been heard to sigh and ask what _did_ you do about a problem like Maria, whose favourite things included Bearhugger's Best Kerrigian Gin. Brown paper bottles, all tied up with string…

 **(3)** She raised this with her mother one night, when it had just been, rarely, the two of them.. Johanna had reflected, then grinned, and told her about a wonderful place called California where everybody had _cellphones._ Apparently a _cellphone_ could be thought of as a really small Clacks, compact enough to fit into a pocket, with sound and pictures. Bekki pictured this in her mind. She went "wow…" and wondered how tiny the goblins had to be. Then asked "And girls my age in this California…" "live on their cellphones _, ja_." her mother had confirmed.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Extract from PM to faithful reader Freyalyn:**

 **Thank you!**

 **There will be more to come. I've got plans for (i) getting Bekki to Lancre, where she has advanced training and a few interesting encounters; and (ii) migrating her to Howondaland where locally resident members of her quirky family make their own input onto her life. She will also discover her own BOSS file is getting thicker and fatter by the day. Even Uncle Charles might be moved to warn her to be careful. (without making a big obvious anvilicious thing about it, trying to mirror something of South Africa in the 1970's and 1980's, where more and more white people grew more and more uneasy with everything that was being done in their name and decided they wanted to move to a different deal. Nelson Mandela would have done what he did regardless - but what can get lost is just how much support he got from reasonable and thoughtful white people, including many in the overseas Saffie diaspora (Soutpiels) who realised things simply could not carry on as they were.).**

 **Still waiting for that call to the dental hospital so they can assess the state of my treasonous upper jaw and see what might be done. The pain, swelling, abscessing and general misery has subsided, however, so something at least temporary could be done concerning the missing front fangs and this will permit me to speak normally again. Hoping so!**


	13. Eerste Volwasse Drankie

_**Strandpiel 13: Eerste volwasse drankie - first grown-up drink  
**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

 _ **Also keeping an eye on the Ireland – South Africa rugby international, which is on TV as I write. The Bokkies are currently losing 18-0. Oh dear. Not kiff and possibly even siff.**_

 _ **Match-end update: Ireland 38, South Africa 3. I think Danie Smith-Rhodes would not be too upbeat about this. Lovely quote from the Irish manager:** **"** They've gone back to the old traditional style of South African rugby which is basically just beat them up up in front and if that doesn't work, well, beat them up even more. It's working for them. It's going to be an absolutely massively physical game because the route one is exactly what they're going to want to do"._

* * *

The staffroom at the Assassins' Guild School could have been connected to teachers' lounges, staffrooms and restrooms anywhere in the Multiverse by a sort of theoretical T-Space. It had been the staffroom for a long, long time. It had an engrained aura composed of sweat, resignation, desperation, tobacco smoke in varying degrees of freshness, a permanently bubbling tea-urn, and bumptious PE teachers. **(1)**

Sister Mary Conception of the Convent School of Seven-Handed Sek, who had brought another batch of her girls here for The Lecture, felt at home. Granted, most teachers didn't normally wear openly-displayed weaponry. But she accepted this was a local quirk of her hosts and probably inevitable in the circumstances. As a professional peer and a guest, she'd been invited up here for a refreshing cup of tea. She appreciated this. Her native Hergen ran on the stuff **.(2)** At least, when the pubs were closed.

"Reading between the lines, your Miss Shauna O'Hennigan is your school's _lively_ case?" her hostess inquired, offering a biscuit. Sister Mary Conception took it with thanks and a slight shudder.

Gillian Lansbury smiled a knowing smile and patted her shoulder in a _we all get one_ sort of way. As between teaching equals.

"And her best friend and possible partner in crime is Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." Gillian remarked. They both glanced over to where Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes was taking her ease in the window recess which was her Spot. Johanna didn't appear to have noticed.

"Funny how these things keep coming back. As if some sort of _script_ is playing out." Gillian remarked. "You'll probably get to see it for yourself when you're a few years into your career. It's a remarkable phenomenon. I saw it first with Mariella Smith-Rhodes and Rivka ben-Divorah. Either on her own was a handful. Put them together…"

Sister Mary Conception noticed how several other Assassin teachers, who were quietly listening, either shuddered a little or looked suddenly distant and reflective.

"And a year or two later, we got Emma Roydes, and yes, that _is_ an unfortunate name, and Johanna Smith-Rhodes Maaijande. A walking definition of the phrase _Déjà vu_. I was their Housemistress."

More shuddering and thousand-yard stares. Sister Mary felt she was being _warned_ about something.

"And now you've got the same thing going on at _your_ school." Gillian remarked. "Keep an eye on them. They're not _bad_ as such or _malicious_ in any way. They never really are. Just larger than life. And other girls tend to look up to them. Role-models. Natural leaders."

Sister Mary Conception felt glad of the advice. Shauna's Gang was a potent force, like an alternative power-structure. A _lot_ of the nuns were watching them. Just in case. And the Smith-Rhodes girl was already getting vocational training for when she left school. Any careers advice to that one would be brief and perfunctory. It had already been worked out.

But what to _do_ with the O'Hennigan girl? She wasn't exactly cut out to be a hairdresser or a sales assistant or a clerical receptionist or any of the sort of approved careers SHS recommended for its girls. Her personality was wrong. Shauna would want something _livelier_ than that. Sister Mary was worried she might drift into something immoral or dubious or not recommended. And every time an SHS girl featured in _**The Times**_ , she was most likely to appear alongside a report concerning her appearance in court, what the charge was, and what the eventual punishment turned out to be. Mother Superior deplored this. The school comedian kept a scrapbook of Eminent Old Girls.

Sister Mary shut her eyes at an awful picture that emerged, unbidden, on the inner screen of her mind, of Shauna O'Hennigan as a sales assistant at Boggi's or Horrids.

" _Faith, darlin', that doesn't fecken' suit you. With your arse being that bloody big, you look like a sack of shite tied in two at the waist, so you do… look, I'll find you something half-decent from the Fat Girls rack, how's that? Clothes For Women Who Need To Put That Bloody Fork Down, we've got a range. Now come away from the window. Your arse is blocking out the daylight."_

* * *

Bekki put the book down gratefully. It was one her father, who meant well, had found for her from the Library at Unseen University.

It had been as hard going as the title suggested.

 _ **Sociological, cultural, and political aspects of the history of the practice of Witchcraft in the Sto Plains and the Ramtops.**_

Naturally, it had been written by a wizard. And it was dry as dust. It was only interesting for what it revealed of the exclusively male world of wizardry, and what it collectively thought about the necessary but, it must be strictly _monitored_ and _controlled_ , practice of Magic by the untrained, untutored, ill-educated and irrational distaff side.

Bekki wanted to meet that wizard and explain to him, simply and without ambiguity, what was wrong with his arguments concerning women and magic. To ask him if he'd actually, you know, ever _met_ any witches. _Ever._ And after she'd hit him, she'd tell him his book was a load of crap, too. **(3)**

There was another book, shorter and thinner. The Librarian had given it to her with an _Oook!_ that meant _"Don't tell your father."_

This was entitled

 **Matriarchal Magic in a Patriarchal World**

And subtitled

 _If a Man Can Be A Warlock, A Woman Can Be A Wizard_

The author was Professor E. Smith, PhD, UU. And lots of other tacked-on seemingly random letters. There were six letters and a period mark in . And at least forty after her name.

Bekki had been astonished to see Professor Smith's full first name was Eskarina. She devoured the book in a sitting. Then read it again. She wanted more of this sort of thing. It made sense. It answered questions.

 _Is Eskarina Smith still alive?_ she wondered. It wasn't a given thing with wizards. But still. A woman Wizard? Who'd started out by training as a Witch? With the fabled Mistress Weatherwax?

* * *

And then Shauna's Gang convened. The girls met with hugs and whoops. Then got on to the pressing business of (i) Why was there never enough money? And (ii) When was that bloody lad Emmanuel-Martin going to do the decent thing and develop an interest in girls? He's too handsome a fella to not be interested. Waste. And (iii) If the meeting accepts that Emmanuel-Martin de Lapoignard is not interested right now, who else is there, and what is the general availability of fit lads in our area? The Chair will accept submissions from the floor.

Bekki loved this. In the middle of being at school all day and training for witchcraft, it was easy to forget she was still thirteen and female and wanted to do normal thirteen-year-old-girl things with like-minded normal people. Or else she'd go nuts. Mum quietly insisted she should make time for being a normal teenager. Thanks, mum. It was understood. Dad usually slipped her a couple of dollars and said "be careful out there." He wanted her to be as normal as possible too.

And if the gang convened at Bekki's, Blessing or Eve would see to it that refreshments were made available. Bekki felt uneasy about friends like Joyce or Janey getting maid service. That they'd go away thinking Bekki was a spoilt little rich kid or something.

Shauna was appreciative. Her usual reaction was something like "Eve, has anyone told you today how lovely you are?"

Eve the maid would smile and join in the joke on a perfectly relaxed social-equals level. The maid, speaking to a Dimwell street-scruff.

"Shauna, you are only saying that to encourage me to come back soon with more! Compliments are nice, but I prefer cash."

The two would banter for a while, perfectly relaxed.

Bekki compared this to being addressed as "Little Madam", or "more usually now as "Miss Rebecka", and sighed **.(4)** She was Madam's daughter. _Of course_ the staff had to be deferential. But with the other girls, Eve and Blessing were a lot more informal. Probably the way things were.

"Two of me sisters are in service." Shauna said. "And one brother. Can't see me signing on as an upstairs maid anywhere, any time soon. Not to a bloody Morporkian noble."

"Shauna, you'd tell them to ram it right up their bum." Janey said.

"Almost right, but I wouldn't use the word "bum". Have you _ever_ heard me call an arse a bum?" Shauna agreed. "Anyway, what are we doing, sitting here talking about what jobs we're going to do after we leave school? That's so fecken' depressing!"

Bekki looked at Davvie Bellamy. They were the only two who knew. With assured futures. One as a Witch, the other as an Assassin. The other girls, all SHS, were up in the air about it.

"Anyway. Your Maureen might have started out as an upstairs maid. She didn't last long." Joyce remarked. "My mum knows her from Sheer Street. Same House of Repute."

"Everybody's got to live." Shauna said, unoffended. "And she's making twenty times more than she did working for that whore's get Lady Regina bloody Rust. Bloody good luck to her!"

There was a brief meaningful pause.

"Shauna?" Joyce said, quietly and firmly. " _I'm_ a whore's get. _Literally_. None taken."

"Sorry, darling. didn't mean _you_. Or your mum. Lady Rust is the other sort of whore's get. The wrong sort."

The apology was accepted. Everybody knew Shauna was okay. She just ran off at the mouth. It was accepted.

They speculated for a while about Seamstressing. You know, as a career. Could we do it without wanting to go " _yeccch!"_ or throw up?

"Our Maureen says you get to see men at their most ridiculous." Shauna said. "Says she has a hard job to stop herself laughing sometimes."

They discussed this for a while, in the sort of twisty-turny-Moebious way that discussions among teenage girls took. Bekki suspected they were all talking about something of which they had very, very, little actual experience and only incomplete practical knowledge. It made her feel slightly uneasy. But it was great to be with friends.

* * *

Shauna stayed over that night. Bekki asked her, in the quiet of the night, if she really had given any thought as to what she'd do after she left school.

Her friend was quiet and thoughtful. And serious. And, the bravado gone, a little bit worried.

"Bekki. I just don't have a fecken' _clue_. And that's Sek's honest truth!"

Bekki and her friend hugged each other to sleep. On the cusp of sleep, she heard a voice, speaking Vondalaans.

"Bekki, _liewe hecksie_. Reassure your friend not to be so anxious. She's clever and resourceful. And determined. She will do well."

"Johanna Lavinia?" Bekki asked, sleepily. She now knew her guides' voices as individuals. She asked a question she had simply not thought to ask before. An obvious one. "You can see into the future too?"

She heard her great-great aunt laugh, amused.

"Only vaguely, _liewe heksie_. I regret we cannot tell you anything useful, such as which horse will win a specific race and at what odds. It doesn't work like that. Shame. But we get to see outlines. Possibilities. Shapes of what may be. We are also constrained as to what we may tell the living. There are _rules_. But I can say your friend has strong arms and a clever mind. And if that fails, she is to trust in her God. Sek isn't a bad God, as Gods go. He does sometimes answer prayer and remember those who serve Him. When He can be bothered."

"You get to meet the Gods too?" Bekki asked.

Great-great-aunt Johanna Lavinia laughed again.

"Periodically, one slums it by visiting the Afterlife." she said. "For some Gods, this is part of the job description. Like the university teacher who strives to avoid contact with students, but now and again has no choice. The same principle applies."

Bekki tried to visualise this. Dead people, who she had been told were shorn of all Discly illusions and often a bit pissed off that the Afterlife wasn't what they'd been led to expect. And then a God descends among them expecting a continuation of worship and adoration. There would then be some _serious_ complaining to the management going on. After all, what can you do to me here, you stuck-up divine bastard? Smite me to death? And if her attitudinal relatives, in the same family line as Mum, ganged up on a God...

She tried not to smile. What was the little ritual Witches had whenever the name of the presumed-deceased Esmerelda Weatherwax came up? Invariably mention of her name would be followed with a ritual _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods._

Bekki had asked about this. She'd asked, naively, wasn't the usual formulation of the phrase _May the Gods have mercy on her soul_?

Olga, Irena, Nottie and Mrs Proust had all looked at her.

" _Devyushka."_ Irena had said. "You never met Mistress Weatherwax, did you? We all _did_!"

" _MayhersoulhavemercyontheGods."_ The other witches chorused. Bekki now knew to join in.

Bekki suspected any God going near the deceased Johanna Smith-Rhodeses would have an uncomfortable time, for much the same reasons. Her mother, after all, was renowned for having won the Teatime Prize four or five times. Mum hadn't inhumed a God yet. Yet. There was time.

"Johanna Lavinia?" Bekki asked. "Why are you here tonight?"

"I like being near you. Your friends are nice, pleasant, funny girls. It was pleasant to be there. I felt young again. Also, a time of decision for you is close. Not very close. But tonight you discussed directions for your futures. The time is coming when you must consider your own. I would find out more about Lancre and the Chalk, _liewe hecksie_. There is no rush yet. But be prepared."

She nodded over at Grindguts, who was perched on the dresser and silently watching. Grindguts was used to this sort of thing by now. He was companion to a witch and a thing of magic himself. He also knew to respect people called Johanna Smith-Rhodes. Living or dead.

"And you have a strange companion. A funny sort of _bloemmie kabouter_ **.(5)** From a strange sort of flower. But his heart is good, anyway. Now I feel I should leave you to sleep."

"Bekki? Who are you talking to?" Shauna asked, sleepily. "You're talking in Howondalandian. And I'd swear somebody was replying."

"Long story." Bekki sighed. "Just accept for now I was talking in my sleep? Nothing to worry about."

 _People on the edge of sleep can hear and see ghosts_ , Bekki realised. _More open, more suggestive. What does Dad call it in wizardspeak? The hypnagogic state? In two worlds at once. Maybe it might work for Mum. She might get to see them and talk to them. At least in passing_. _I'd love it if she could._

Bekki passed into sleep. She dreamt of high snowy mountains and scattered villages clinging to their sides and foothills, clinging on among deep dark woodland. There was a castle on a ravine over a river. It looked like the classic fairy-tale castle that had been allowed to fall into shabby disrepair and had seen better centuries, Any Princess living there, Bekki suspected, would tend to wear hair-curlers, slouch around in an old stained dressing-gown and beaten-up carpet slippers with trodden-down heels, have collapsing makeup and a cigarette butt sticking out of the side of her mouth… and she'd complain incessantly about having been stuck up there for forty-odd bleeding years with no Prince in sight **.(6)**

Pyn the cat had leapt up on the bed with them. He had opened one suspicious eye to Johanna Lavinia Smith-Rhodes, dismissed her as fundamentally uninteresting, and curled up to sleep. Bekki accepted this. Once settled and sleeping, Pyn, like his sister Smart, was unshiftable. _Ah well. It's a big bed. It has to be_. **(7)**

Bekki slipped between the vision of small hamlets and woods clinging to the side of high snowy mountains with the shabby castle clinging to a cliff-edge over a river, and the familiar contours of her own bedroom; flicking back and forth between contending realities in the way that often happens on the cusp of sleep; and then her mind and body conclusively decided sleep was the better option. The majority vote switched her off completely, and she knew no more till morning.

* * *

It had been a relaxed Saturday evening at the Watch. Olga and Irena had gone about routine ground duties on the rooftop air station, pitching in with cleaning and tidying alongside the others, and had started singing something stirring in Far Überwaldean. After a whole, some of the Dwarfs who were employed as ground crew joined in. It was a pleasant evening. Bekki focused, and after a while joined in. She picked up rhythms and new languages quickly and soon got the words, even if she had no idea what they actually _meant_.

 _Полюшко-поле,_

 _полюшко, широко поле, Едут по полю герои, Эх, да Красной Армии герои._

 _Девушки плачут, Девушкам сегодня грустно, Милый надолго уехал, Эх, да милый в армию уехал._

 _Девушки, гляньте, Гляньте на дорогу нашу, Вьётся дальняя дорога, Эх, да развесёлая дорога._

This was a side of Olga and Irena she hadn't seen before. It was compelling and she wanted to join in.

"They'll get a vodka bottle out as soon as they come off shift." Nottie said, tolerantly. "Just you wait. By the way, you're not old enough for vodka yet."

Bekki was happily singing along with " _Polyushko-pole, polyushko, shiroko pole"…_ and felt she didn't need any vodka to be happy like this. It was infectious. She was trying to follow the song.

" _Devushki, glyan'te, Glyan'te na dorogu nashu, V'yotsya dal'nyaya doroga, Eh, da razvesyolaya doroga."_

She frowned.

"I know " _devushka_ " means "girl" or "kid". Or "kid who is a girl". she said. "they call me that often enough. But I can't get much of the rest."

Olga and one of the Dwarfs were doing a whirling sort of dance in the middle of the landing-circle, on top of the big "H". It involved almost sitting down, with folded arms, but without a chair there, and enthusiastically kicking your legs out. It looked uncomfortable. The others were whooping and cheering them on.

Nottie smiled tolerantly.

"I don't get it all. But it's about the usual sort of thing. _We've been to war. We rode out and fought. We came back alive. The rest is gravy. So let's crack the vodka open and celebrate being here and alive._ Sort of thing. I'm paraphrasing, of course."

"What's the occasion?" Bekki asked, interested.

"They're from Far Überwald. They don't _need_ an excuse. And it's been a busy few weeks. Lots going on. Olga does this every so often. Letting off steam, I guess."

Bekki experimented with the squatting-down-and-kicking-your-legs-out dance. She fell over. She tried again. She fell over again. She didn't care. This was fun. She wanted to join in. People cheered and encouraged her. One of the Dwarfs had brought out an oddly shaped guitar sort of thing. Bekki didn't realise Dwarfs were musical. But it made sense.

"Come on, _devushka_." Irena said. "I'll teach you. You're entitled. You're a flier now. One of us." she said.

Bekki looked over. Then realised.

Irena hugged her.

"Sending you up solo soon." she said. "We may as well celebrate. Our little chick is getting her wings."

There was a quick conference. Olga nodded.

Then a broomstick was brought out.

"Make it quick." Irena said. "Two or three circuits. Then land. Remember everything I told you. Then we celebrate you."

Bekki focused. Then did her first short solo flight. Without an instructor. There were cheers as she landed. She was led across to a hastily set up table. There was a bottle full of clear watery liquid. It looked safe enough. From a distance. And lots of glasses. They were filled and passed out.

"I'll make it quick!" Lieutenant Olga Romanoff called. "I know I can be such a long-winded pompous old cow. Let's avoid that. Tonight we have a new member of our family. We have a new pilot!"

People cheered.

"She's just gone solo. You all saw her. Our _devushka_ has her wings! She's still not old enough to be Air Police, but that doesn't matter. She's a witch, poor innocent little chick. But she can fly! Let us welcome her aboard in the usual way!"

Olga embraced and kissed Bekki.

"Welcome, new _babiuschka_." she said. " _Liewe Heksie_."

Shortly after that, she drank her first glass of vodka. It tasted nasty and left a burny sensation in her mouth and throat, but she knew not to splutter or cough.

"Just the one. Well, maybe _two_. You aren't even fourteen yet." Olga said.

This time she got her balance right to do the squatting-down-and-kicking-your-legs-out dance without falling over. The vodka tasted horrible but it seemed to help her balance. It also seemed to help her learn a bit more Far Überwaldean. Irena nodded appreciation and taught her the stock phrases, like _hello, goodbye, please, thank you, can't be helped,_ and _I've got to get you home, young lady, it's best you_ _do not_ _have another glass of vodka._

* * *

"Did her first solo flight, did she?" Mum asked. She seemed unsurprised. "Well, at least she's still upright."

Mum shook her head. She looked at Bekki with what she thought was surprising tolerance, for her mother. She'd half expected Mum to go totally _spare_.

Get to bed. _Devyushka_." she said. And "Thanks, Irena. I appreciate she only had a couple of glasses. I accept she deserved _those_. You fly. You have your little rituals. And some of them involve strong drink. Well, _many_ of them involve strong drink. And Bekki is now a pilot and a flyer. So a couple of glasses. That is fair. In the company of people who have her best interests at heart and are looking out for her."

Bekki's first hangover the next morning convinced her she was never going to drink again. Ever. Mum smiled slightly and let this happen too.

"It's a life lesson." she said, later. "Be careful when drinking with Far Überwaldeans. Any people who distil vodka as a national drink are to be treated with respect. I was out cold for a day, and I was hungover for two more."

Mum crossed to a cupboard, unlocked it, and took out a bottle Bekki recognised as vodka. She shuddered.

She watched her mother pour some into a saucer. Then she struck a match. The vodka burnt for a long time with a pale blue flame. They watched it together.

"I'm not sure if any ghosts are around." she said. "But they're welcome to that. Did you see what I just did? If you can set fire to it, don't drink more than three glasses. If it actually explodes, don't drink it at all. If it melts the saucer, use it as a weapon."

Mum smiled. "Feeling better yet? No? Well, you've learnt another little lesson there, _meisie_. And some lessons you cannot teach. You have to learn them."

Bekki felt glad it was Octeday morning. No school.

And people did this for pleasure? Drank strong spirits which tasted foul, knowing they'd feel this way the next morning?

Mum smiled. Her dad frowned.

Breakfast, I think."

It was a big greasy fry-up, what they called a full Morporkian. Fried sausage. Fried bread. Lots of fried eggs. Fried mushrooms. And oh, what a surprise. Fried bacon. They didn't _normally_ have this for breakfast. Bekki looked at her mother.

"Eat it all up." Mum said, encouragingly. "good for you. Settles your stomach. Be quick, we're going to Kerk."

Realising her mother was doing this on purpose, Bekki set to…

* * *

 **(1)** Who contributed most of the sweat. This is an ongoing bone of contention in staffrooms. Everywhere.

 **(2)** It's an interesting fact that, per capita, Ireland drinks twice as much tea as the British and is probably the world's gold-medal-winning tea-drinking nation. If there was an Olympic event in tea-drinking, the Irish would win it every time out. _**Father Ted**_ and the memorable Mrs Doyle are not complete caricatures.

 **(3)** deep down, Bekki took after her mother. It would surface every so often. People were briefly surprised.

 **(4)** _ **Little Madam**_ was a title that had passed down the chain from Bekki first to Famke, and then to Ruth. Famke was now "Miss Famke" to the staff. Ruth was the current Little Madam.

 **(5)** I know. A nod to that TV show, _die Liewe Heksie_. In which Lavinia the Little Witch has a companion sprite called Bloemmie, who is a gormlessly child-like but good-natured pixie. A _kabouter,_ in Afrikaans. A sort of flower-fairy.

 **(6)** Bekki felt guilty about this when, much later, she realised the relevant Princess was her friend and tutor Nottie Garlick, Witch and Crown Princess of Lancre. Nottie might not be conventionally attractive, but she did take care of her appearance and didn't smoke. And didn't swear. Much.

 **(7)** and did I mention that as well as a flower-fairy, _Lavinia_ _die Liewe Heksie_ also has a little cat, who doesn't do much but sits there miouwing a lot and generally acts as a cute and fragile little companion kittie? _Bekki die Liewe Heksie_ has Grindguts the Destroying Demon – and Acerian Maine Coons… (there's nothing like taking an iconic children's TV show, even one obscure outside its intended audience in South Africa, and racking it Up To Eleven… very satisfying….)

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Interesting point, from reader bissek: thank you, bissek!**

bissek  
. chapter 12

Given that this is several years in the future from most of your other fics, would Vimes have gotten started on his "New Ankhtown" project of providing decent affordable lower-class housing with a landlord who is actually responsible for the building's upkeep and can be held accountable for it? Shauna's family could use that.

 _Reply:_

Good point. worth considering. But a big project that amounts to rebuilding and ultimately rehousing the best part of an entire city takes time... I wonder how I can dovetail this into events of "The Civilian Assistant" and add to cross-story continuity. Actually, you've made a really good point here. Thank you. This is worth factoring in! A bit of scheming from Johanna and some creative constructive meddling, perhaps… Maybe Johanna's sense of basic decency kicks in and she meddles, with good intentions, and talks to people. I do see "Shauna's Gang" being mortified with embarrassment when their actual mothers go out minge-drinking together, having bonded in the adversity of being mothers to teenage daughters... the democracy of a bunch of thirty and forty-something respectable wives and mothers of all social backgrounds and occupations collectively deciding "To hell with it. Let's let our hair down and get hammered." There may be productive mirth here.


	14. Dood en wat gebeur volgende

_**Strandpiel 14:**_ _**Dood en wat gebeur volgende – Death and those things which happen next**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

 _ **In which Bekki learns a few more essential Witch skills**_

Bekki learnt, a day or two later, why Olga Romanoff, after a day of Watch duties, witching, and moments of deep thought and reflection, had started a spontaneous post-shift party with added vodka. It hadn't _all_ been to do with Bekki going solo as a broomstick pilot.

Bekki had loved the spontaneous life-affirming joy of it all. Half the ground crew and some of the pilots in the service were Far Überwaldeans. They hadn't taken much encouraging to down tools and join in a wild dance. Irena had explained that there were such people as Cossacks out there. They danced like that. It had evolved for much the same reasons and purposes as morris dancing in Lancre. Occasionally with long curved sharp sabres, but mostly unarmed.

And Olga, dancing the steps, moving with the balalaika music, had looked wildly, fiercely, beautiful. Untamed. She was a witch; witches tended not to be conventionally attractive. But in the right circumstances, she had the kind of look and attitude that men would kill for. Or be prepared to be killed by. A lot of men might have considered that a fair trade-off.

Bekki, after her acceptance into the sisterhood of broomstick pilots and her first exposure to seriously strong drink, had been taken home by Godsmother Irena. It had been held to be prudent.

Despite the little inner Bekki who had gibbered through the vodka fumes that _Mum is going to go absolutely spare! She'll go mental!,_ Mum had been fine about it. Bekki had discovered a former residential housemistress at the Assassins' Guild School had seen it all before with regard to teenage girls experimenting with strong drink and all its inevitable consequences. Johanna Smith-Rhodes had evolved some _nasty_ strategies for dealing with girls who had discovered the wonderful world of alcohol. She didn't get angry or censorious or naggy about it. She hadn't needed to. In a pleasant, matter-of-fact way that assigned no blame or censure _whatsoever_ , her mother had introduced her to the downside of drinking. Like Matron Igorina's Lecture, it involved practical education and a strong dose of aversion therapy. _And_ a big greasy piled-up breakfast plate, just when you felt at your most fragile. _And_ as Octeday morning always followed on from Party Night, the hangover and the big greasy breakfast had happened just before two and a half dreary unspeakable hours of sitting in Kerk listening to the preacher droning on.

Dad had been more inclined to be critical, in fact. This was uncomfortable. In the good-cop, bad-cop game of parenting, her father had always been the Good Cop. Till now. He'd hit another of the rocks of being father to a teenage girl – what if she went out and discovered drink? And the other things that went with it? Dad had become absurdly over-protective. Bekki resolved to ask the others in Shauna's Gang about this.

Irena had explained the party hadn't gone on for all that long after Bekki had been escorted home. Bekki remembered that Sam Vimes himself had loafed up to see what the noise was about. Mr Vimes had realised that this was an Air Police tradition whenever a new witch-pilot in training went solo for the first time. He understood this. He also understood a significant proportion of the Air Police strength came from places like Far Überwald, Zlobenia and Mouldavia. And when those people got it into their heads to get up and have a dance, or more accurately squatted down to have a dance, you let them get on with it.

He had apparently seen Bekki, hair flying and whooping and laughing, learning how to do a complicated dance involving sabres, with Irena and Olga, and Mister Mig Oyeff the ground technomancer/broomstick mechanic, teaching her the measures.

Vimes had shaken his head, put on the grumpy expression that happened whenever a Watch party with alcohol he couldn't share was in progress, and noted Olga had a sort of blondey – auburney – brunettey hair thing going on. But definite auburn.

Then he'd looked at Bekki.

"New pilot." he'd remarked to Nottie, who was duty air witch and who therefore had to stay off the vodka. "Wetting her wings, isn't that the word you people have for it? I don't know. Talk about a _Red Hair Force_."

But he'd stayed out of it. They were mad people from the other side of Überwald who were made madder still by being witches and even more insane by being pilots. _And_ they'd joined the Watch. You had to make allowances.

And then, Nottie had said, a Shout had gone up. Air Police units were needed in the air. Olga had stood up, shrugged her tunic back on again, the one with the lieutenant's rank badges, and said

"Back to it, people. Look on the bright side. It's overtime pay. I want two brooms airborne over Widdershins Broadway. By five minutes ago."

And the Air Base was now a working station again after a couple of hours' downtime. Suddenly, with no fuss. Vimes grinned appreciatively. His pilots were _professionals._ He could stand a bit of balalaika music, the deep melancholia-tinged singing of strange songs written in a weird mirror-alphabet that made your eyes water and looked like wizard-script, the consequent insanely mad dancing, and he could even turn a blind eye to a glass of vodka here and there. Hell's Bells, Far Überwald was fuelled on the stuff. If small amounts of it tanked up his pilots – and they'd all been off duty anyway – when they volunteered to do the overtime – well, not a problem. He was also pretty sure the Smith-Rhodes girl would be sorted out when she got home. Irena had been responsible. He just didn't _really_ want Johanna Smith-Rhodes coming round to ask exactly why her thirteen year old daughter had been given strong drink while on Watch premises. He winced, and hoped Irena had fixed _that_ one. He contemplated Bekki. Nice girl, sensible, steady. Grown-up for her age. And not every pilot who was trained here, or who worked out of here for the Pegasus Service, was a sworn-in Watchwoman. Many of them were, if only as Specials. It made a lot of things easier. But he understood Witches were a sort of Lore unto themselves. That most of them also respected the Law – in their way - was something he appreciated. Where the two overlapped, the Air Police got good coppers. **(1)**

 _Shame she's so young,_ Vimes thought _. I can't swear her in even as a Special at her age. Maybe she could go out on a ride-along one or two nights. Give her a little taster. An experienced hand to keep her safe. When she turns sixteen, swear her in. At least as a Special. That worked with Nottie. She's a good copper. Bekki's mother was a good Special._

* * *

It had come as a surprise to Bekki that Olga Romanoff was actually married, like a _normal_ person. She wondered where the Watch Witch found the time. And she kept it quiet, as if it was no big deal.

And lots of Wizards turned up at her house to talk to Dad. Again it was no big deal. They'd stay for dinner sometimes, then disappear off to Dad's study to talk in wizardspeak. She'd met them all. Victor Tugelbend, who was in the Watch, was fun and quietly funny. There was Professor Rincewind, who twitched a lot and was wary around Mum as if he expected her to do something horrible to him. The Librarian, of course. There was always a banana for the Librarian. Bekki and her sisters had had it carefully explained to him that while he was different, he was still a Wizard. And _**not**_ to use the m-word. Of course, Famke had innocently asked why we _shouldn't_ call him a monkey. All conversation had stopped. Mum had gone very quiet and still. Dad did the thing with his forehead and the palm of his hand. Then the Librarian had knuckled forward, taken the little girl by the hand, and had said, in a series of gentle but expressive oooks, why he preferred to be referred to as an _ape_. He'd then given her a little hug that said "no harm done." Mum had breathed out and said "Thenk you, old man."

Bekki vaguely recalled a long, thin, wizard of about Dad's age or maybe a little younger, who spoke Vondalaans. Mum gave him the same courtesies as any other visitor from the Other Country. Bekki frowned, and recalled he tended to arrive with Olga. Apparently he was at the university there and had some sort of Visiting Fellow status at Unseen. He didn't stay over, which was odd for a visitor from Howondaland, and tended to leave with Olga.

Belatedly, Bekki put the pieces together. She'd never even noticed before.

"I do the Pegasus Run to Howondaland twice a week." Olga had said. Stay overnight if I can. Got a place to stay there."

She sometimes ferried Eddie back if he had anything to do at Unseen. On average, they spent three nights of the week together, sometimes more. Olga viewed it as a work-related perk.

Then Olga and Eddie turned up together at Spa Lane. They were guests at dinner. Eddie looked worried. Olga resigned. Then Mum took Olga off in one direction for a private drink and a chat. Dad led Eddie to his study. He took a bottle with him and two glasses. Bekki conscientiously tried not to eavesdrop. But Dad had a sort of quietly smug look. Mum had a secret little smile on her face.

"I've spoken to Mr Vimes." Olga said. "I'll keep on going for as long as I can. But then it's all yours for a few months, Irena. Acting Lieutenant."

Irena shook her head.

"I don't know. The woman who said she was never going to have children. Ever."

Bekki perked up, alert. She'd wondered. Last night. She tried to imagine Olga as a mother. She couldn't make it fit.

"Don't get ideas, _devyuschka_." Olga said. "If you turned out to be the only witch nearby, I'd let you birth me. Given a choice, I might _just_ put you in the top twenty of possibles right now, if I was forced to. Low down that list. However, I _might_ let you babysit afterwards, if you're good."

"That'll do." Bekki said. "Where are you going to bring the baby up?"

"Here, probably." Olga said. "Which makes it interesting. I'm from Far ؒ Überwald. With a side-dish of Zlobenian. It's complicated. Eddie's from Rimwards Howondaland. So if our child is born in Ankh-Morpork…"

"Triple nationality. At least." Irena said. "Add in Zlobenia. That's _quadruple_ nationality. _Slava bogu_. Bekki's got enough with double."

Bekki tried to visualise it. Not one language but _three_. Given the location, they'd kind of shuffle around between being the indoor and the outdoor language. Up to four different nationalities. And passports. She frowned. Was Überwald advanced enough to issue passports to its citizens? Some countries didn't. She tried to visualise an Überwaldean passport. It would have to be in anything up to fourteen different languages. Two principal human ethnicities, Near and Far. And a separate set of boxes for _species_. Then which, for instance, Dwarf or Werewolf clan you belonged to. And a pull-out section for your full Vampire name, if applicable.

 _Well, at least I could talk to Olga's little girl in two out of those three languages…_

She felt really excited about a new baby among her family's extended circle of friends. She was going to be an informal auntie again. This was nice.

Ponder Stibbons poured another small glass of something soothing. He looked over at Doctor Eduard de Kockamaainje, of the School of Magical Studies **(2)** at Witwatersrand University, Rimwards Howondaland. Eddie also had Visiting Fellow rights at Unseen University. He was a consultant in Howondalandian Magic and Mystical Traditions.

The two Wizards had an easy friendship based on mutual interest, professional links, and the fact they'd both managed to attract the interest of the sort of woman each would have considered to be way out of his league and completely unattainable. Eddie and Ponder had both been trained as Wizards. They both had realised, early on, the uncomfortable truth that to a young Wizard, practically _every_ normally attractive and interesting woman would be way out of their league. That came with the pointy hat and the staff. It still astounded both of them that they'd struck lucky in the way they had. It bonded them.

Eddie, a physically unprepossessing man, long, gawky and angular with a straggly half-hearted beard, had met Olga on one of her official flights to Howondaland. Witch and Wizard had bonded in adversity, in the face of what looked like an imminent all-out pitiless war that was about to roll over them. **(3)** It was the same grim bloody war after which Ponder had decided that if association with Johanna Smith-Rhodes meant facing hideous agonising death at her side at fairly regular intervals, he might as well die married to her. It made a sort of sense. Marriage and Bekki had happened not too long afterwards.

For Eddie, he'd finished his Army service not long afterwards. With an enormous sigh of relief. He'd never been a good fit in the man's man bro culture of the military. National Service had meant the excruciating horrors of recruit training, during which the Military had realised a fully trained _towenaar_ was useful. He'd been posted as a field-wizard to an infantry unit, told his rank of Captain was a technical courtesy and not to go around thinking he was an Army captain in any actually useful or relevant sense, and had been befriended by a young Lieutenant called Julian Smith-Rhodes, a man who sauntered through life as if he'd already got it all worked out. Which, as Eddie gloomily conceded, Julian probably _had_. They had remained friends.

And Olga had flown back on official missions, and, incredibly, sought him out. As his professional links to Ankh-Morpork grew, she'd got to fly him to the city via Pegasus. Lord Vetinari had said "I do not consider I need to know about this."

It had apparently been Vetinari's way of saying "thank you" for her services. It also allowed Eddie to collaborate with peers at Unseen to develop interesting things at the Thaumatalogical Park. Vetinari always had more than one reason.

And life with Olga had progressed. Things had become a pleasant routine involving Olga spending part of her week and at least one overnight stay in Rimwards Howondaland. Eddie got to stay at her place in Ankh-Morpork. It was the sort of marriage in all but name that had two countries and two homes. A Strandpiel marriage, Eddie had said.

Eddie had tentatively suggested making it more formal. To his astonished surprise, she had agreed.

The only problem, as he said to Ponder, had been the in-laws. Apparently Olga's father, already furious at his daughter becoming a witch, had _really_ gone ballistic about her marrying beneath herself. A Wizard son-in-law, a mere middle-class tradesman, was _not_ acceptable as consort for a potential Grand Duchess. He'd fired the phrase "morganatic marriage **(4)"** at her as a dire insult. They'd had to go and look it up. They now very proudly described themselves as being a _left-handed marriage._

Ponder sympathised. At least _his_ father-in-law quite liked him. A hostile Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes did not bear thinking about.

Introduced to Pieter van der Graaf by Johanna, the then Ambassador had said there was no need for Olga to actively seek Rimwards Howondalandian nationality, as, by default, marrying a citizen conferred it on her. And as a married woman, Olga, you are of course excused National Service. Welcome to our nation. (5)

" _Horosho",_ Olga had said. She had turned to Johanna. "Apparently, that translates as " _kiff_ ".

A brief civil marriage had ensued at the Howondalandian Embassy. Quick and discreet, only a handful of guests had been invited. Johanna and Ponder were there. Julian Smith-Rhodes had been Best Man. Irena had supported her lifelong friend. Sam Vimes had attended on behalf of the Watch. Lady Sybil too, because weddings were always romantic, weren't they? Especially a noble daughter, wanting to present her father with a done deal. Do you want me to have a word with your parents, Olga? Duchess to Grand Duke? See if we can't sort something out? Lady Sybil Ramkin knew every titled person on the Disc, or seemed to. Her contacts book was _legendary._ **(6)**

And life had continued much as before. Until now. Mossy Lawn had confirmed it. That a potential Grand Ducal heir was on the way. Apparently Olga's father had expressed a strong sentiment on hearing about this. A _very_ strong sentiment from the future grandfather. Johanna had called in favours from the Guild concerning politely declining any contract sought on the life of an inconvenient son-in-law. She'd also put the word out that if such a contract were to be even _considered_ by any former student of hers, she might be inclined to offer a bit of mentorial guidance and explain, at length, why it should be declined. Unseen University had also pointed out that they had strong views concerning anyone not a Wizard trying to kill an accredited Wizard. That sort of thing, as Mustrum Ridcully pointed out, stayed in the family. If needed. _Our_ prerogative. And life carried on.

Ponder Stibbons, basking slightly in the aura of being the Experienced Man, said "Is there any doubt? You're a Wizard. Olga's a Witch. Of course, the child might turn out to surprise everybody, and have no magic at all."

Eddie winced slightly. He'd heard about Bekki. He'd met Bekki. He realised a magically gifted child needed careful handling. Bekki had started doing random interesting things before she was five. She had needed to be instructed that using magic to make nice things happen wasn't always a bright idea.

"Looks like you're going to have to do the same with yours." Ponder had said, in the happy tones of a father who'd got all that out of the way talking to the new man who had it yet to come. "Did I tell you about how Grindguts happened?"

"S'right, guvnor." Grindguts the Destroying Demon said. He was sitting on Ponder's desk smoking a very small cigarette. Ponder tolerated colleagues smoking in his office. Wizards and smoking went together, after all. The privilege extended to familiars too.

"One minute I'm a model 1.4 Basic Imp tied to a page in a pop-up-book for kiddies, hardly any sentience, trained to do a little song-and-dance act for kiddies, nothin' else. Next thing, I gets all this wossname, independent thought, starting to happen. You know, free will. I pops up, does the schtick, and this little girl, not even three, sez to me "What _else_ can you do?" and then she sez "You should run around outside the book. It's _not fair_ when I turn the page you're shut in again." And then bugger me, I'm runnin' around and I'm gettin' all this _cognition_ goin' on. Could run around freely then. Didn't have to watch out for them bleedin' cats."

Eddie winced. Ponder patted his arm.

"I had to double-lock the Book then." he said. "Some of the other pop-up characters did not look nice at all. I really didn't want Bel-Shammaroth turning up, for instance. Admittedly whoever wrote the book had thought twice about making _him_ into a pop-up imp. Just a normal drawing on a page. But with Bekki, you never knew."

Eddie winced again. Ponder basked in the glow of experience.

"And she's pregnant. That goes on for nine months. Let me tell you about some of the things that you've got to beware of…"

* * *

Elsewhere, Johanna had opened a bottle of mampoer and poured two glasses.

"Any thoughts where the child goes to school?" she asked. Olga frowned. She'd never been to school. Education for one of her status had been a succession of private governesses, minor titled people from Quirm and Ankh-Morpork. And then, highly informally, old Natalia, the _babiuschka._

" _Eish,_ that's for later. Need to talk to you ebout the next nine months. I found I could still ride a horse to the last minute. Horses edjust es your shape changes. Your Pegasus should get used to you. But I hed to give up edificeering efter three months. You'll have to work out how thet effects riding a broomstick. Witches must have got pregnant before?"

Johanna, too, was enjoying being able to pass her experience on to a first-time mother. It gave her a nice warm feeling inside.

"I tell you, Johanna, I'm not giving up a drink." Olga said, firmly.

"Very wise." Johanna said. "I tried that while I was carrying Bekki. Made no difference end I was miserable es Hell. Got Bekki. The little witch. I learnt. Drenk as normal while Famke was on the way. I considered thet if I was going to be uncomfortable for nine months with all the usual things, a drink would help. It helped with Famke."

"The one who is almost certain to become an Assassin." Olga remarked.

Johanna took a long sip of her drink. It helped.

" _Ja._ Over-confident es Hell. Still working on thet."

"And Ruth?" Olga asked. Johanna smiled. Ruth was approaching six years old. She was dark-haired like her father, promised to be physically slight, wore glasses like her father, and projected a huge-eyed shyness at the world. Her two older sisters loved her and were fiercely protective of her.

"Neither witch nor Essessin. Thenkfully. Inclined to gentler things. If she hes megic, it is in her fingers. End I do not think those fingers will hendle too meny weapons."

"You hope."

They thoughtfully listened to the piano scales. It was very easy to tell the difference between Famke and Ruth at the piano.

"She draws end paints, too. Gillian is impressed."

Life went on. Olga got visibly larger. The other witches were protective of her.

"Apparently a woman in the old country managed sixty-nine." Irena said, conversationally. All conversation stopped.

"Sixty-nine." Nottie said. Bekki looked up too. She thought ten O'Hennigans was pushing it a bit. And both Nottie and Bekki had mothers who'd stopped at three. Nottie sometimes talked dismissively about her brothers, the two Princes of Lancre. Apparently they were little shits.

" _Da._ Sixty-nine." Irena confirmed. "She was prone to twins. And triplets. And quads."

"Ah, kulaks." Olga said, reflectively. "Kulaks breed like rabbits. Well-known fact."

Irena invited Olga to do something spiky and probably biologically impossible. Bekki's knowledge of Far Überwaldean was improving almost daily. She reassembled the syllables in her head and winced, thinking _"Ouch…"_

" _Da. Babiuschka_ Natalia told me. She said, as a young _babiuschka_ , she dealt with that family. Did some of the confinements. Apparently, my great-uncle, who was Grand-Duke in that Duchy, paid them a pension, as they were celebrities. _Govno_ , he got a few more good kulaks to work his estates. Good investment." **(7)**

"Serves you right if you have twins." Irena said. "Or triplets."

The older witches looked at Bekki.

"Just wait till you get to do your first multiple." Irena said, in a _"you've got it coming to you, devyushka"_ tone of voice. "I did quads once. Just when you think it's all over, then _govno_ , another one comes at you. Some God's idea of a joke, I suspect."

* * *

Bekki had not done a multiple birthing yet. But not too soon after that, and trying to get her head around the knowledge that her school wanted her to do the usual school-end exams a year or two ahead of time as she was "absurdly intelligent", she got to do the other thing witches have to do. Possibly, she speculated, as a necessary balance to Rebecka O'Hennigan. One in, one out.

Bekki had once, briefly, shared a prison cell with Steffi Gibbet, who at the time she knew as a _special friend_ of Godsmother Alice. Her mother had carefully not gone into details. Bekki had shrugged. If Godsmother Alice wanted to hug and hold hands and kiss with her _special friend_ Steffi, that was fine by her. It was sweet. They really liked each other. That was nice. Godsmother Alice needed a special friend, Bekki had decided.

Steffi had stayed in touch with the girls she fondly called "little old lags". They'd been cellies together, after all. If only for an afternoon.

Bekki and Davvie had even been given honorary membership of the Guild of Lags and Lifers. Davvie's father had passed over the membership cards with a _very_ unreadable look on his face.

"Those cost me half an ounce of snout and six packs of rollies." he had said, mysteriously, in Prison Officer Talk.

Bekki had put hers in her Treasures Box. Her first Guild Membership, aged nine. Something to treasure.

* * *

Aged fourteen, she had a better idea of what _special friendship_ meant. Shauna's Gang had discussed it one night. It meant _bumping uglies_ with another girl. Shauna had said feck, no harm to it, and while I'm not that way inclined meself, at least you don't have to worry about getting up the duff. Not if you're an Embankment. A Holder-Back-Of-Water. A Friend of Alice Band.

Matron Igorina had also covered it in one of The Lectures. In Matron Igorina's opinion, there was no harm to it and _definitely_ no stigma attached. Some people were made that way. It happened in all-female environments. Boarding schools. Oh, and among nuns.

Shauna's Gang had then watched diligently to speculate as to which of their nuns were _special friends_. They had a shortlist. Some nuns got visibly nervous.

* * *

And now Bekki had met a _special friend_ of Godsmother Alice on the street. Steffi, normally cheerful and upbeat, looked worried. She had taken Bekki for coffee. Then explained she thought a situation needed a witch. She explained. They went round to the shabby little house on the outskirts of the Shades together. Bekki was glad she was walking with a career Thief. On these streets. Although Mum might have words to say…

Steffi let her into Number Twenty-Seven.

"Couldn't get Mrs Proust." she said, apologetically. "Long Short Tall Fat Sally wasn't available. Found you a witch, though."

One of the group of older neighbour women, the sort who rallied round in a crisis, looked around her suspiciously.

"Where?" she asked. "Is she outside, behind the kid?"

"Errr… " Bekki said. Being third choice witch wasn't good for her self-esteem. Then she remembered her training. And channelled Olga Romanoff, good and hard. With a side-salad of Johanna Smith-Rhodes. Mainly her mother, but she had six to choose from.

"Okay." Bekki said, focussing. "You asked for a Witch. I'm here. What's needed?" Her eyes dared them to argue.

The three older women looked at each other.

"A bit _bossy_ , isn't she?"

Steffi smiled slightly.

"I think that's a good ninety percent of the definition of _witch_." she remarked. "This way, Miss Smith-Rhodes."

Bekki saw the old lady in the bed was elderly and fragile. She proudly said she was ninety-three years old. Up until earlier on tonight, she'd been looking forward to her ninety-fourth. All things considered, this was a bit of a bugger, Stephanie. You'll have to cancel the birthday cake, love.

Steffi agreed, lowering her head. Bekki realised the cheerful optimistic Thief she knew was looking a bit upset. The old lady, by contrast, seemed to be the most cheerful person in the room.

The old lady looked up at Bekki and grinned.

"You're the girl who got sent out? Bit young, but I suppose all witches have to start somewhere. Before there are old witches there have got to be young ones. Come and sit down, love. You can tell me about yourself, while we're waiting."

Bekki sat and talked to the old lady, who she discovered was called Olecrana Elbow. _Mrs_ Olecrana Elbow. She wasn't related to Steffi. It was just that over the last few years, Stephanie got into a habit of calling round once or twice a week. To see I'm okay and I'm being looked after. Isn't that right, Stephanie? She does _wonders_ for me toenails **!(8)**

Steffi blew her nose awkwardly. The old lady motioned Bekki to lean over and come close. Bekki did this. Mrs Elbow spoke softly into her ear.

"You ain't here for _me_ , love." the old lady said. "I know where I'm going, more or less, and I'm not going to be a bother to anyone soon. You're here for _them._ Look after Stephanie, would you? She'll need it. Makes out she's hard as nails, but soft as a lamb on the inside. And stop them thieving buggers nicking anything on the way out. Neighbours. Hardly see them until you're about to die, then they turn up for the drama. Hmmph. Not young Stephanie, mind you. She can have whatever she likes. She's earned it."

"I've left the lot to you, Stephanie, love." the old lady said in a louder voice. "There ain't much, but it's yours. The little witch is my witness."

And then the room froze. Time slowed. The tableau of the Ephebian chorus of grieving neighbours and a genuinely sniffly weepy Thief slowed to nothing. Bekki moved suddenly in a world of stillness.

REBECKA.

She jumped. The voice was different… she'd expected something else.

She turned slowly.

"Miss Susan?" she asked.

It was her first teacher, the one she still vividly remembered from her nursery year at Frout's. Only Miss Susan was dressed all in black and holding a scythe…

I HAVE TO STAND IN… Miss Susan appeared to realise, and adjust.

"Now and again Grandfather is unavailable." she said, in her normal voice. "For whatever reason. So I get to cover the Duty."

She nodded across.

"I'm not surprised to see you became a Witch." Susan Sto Helit said, conversationally. "I knew straight away you were going to be different. Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. I really wanted you in my classroom. Your parents took a little persuading, however."

"So what happens now, Miss Susan?" Bekki asked. "Look, it's my first one…"

"There was a cough from the bed.

"Show her, love?" Mrs Elbow requested. "Time I went. Well, nice meeting you, young Rebecka. All my love to Stephanie. She's a good girl."

MRS OLECRANA ELBOW? Susan asked, putting on the Voice.

The scythe swung. Bekki watched. This too was a witch duty. She wondered if her mother ever got to see this bit, and decided probably not.

"Well, That didn't hurt." Olecrana Elbow remarked. "What next?"

FOLLOW ME, MRS ELBOW. Susan said. NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN, REBECKA. LOOK AFTER STEFFI. SHE'S BY NO MEANS THE HARD-FACED CYNICAL STREET-HARDENED THIEF SHE LIKES TO MAKE OUT SHE IS. HAVING A CONSCIENCE AND A BIG HEART IS SOMETHING OF A DRAWBACK IN HER CAREER. RIGHT NOW SHE WILL NEED SOMEBODY.

Bekki saw them go. It was expected. Then she refocused and returned to the world.

She suggested to the Ephebian chorus of neighbours that if they didn't have anything useful to contribute, they could go. _Now_. This instant. Affronted, two of the three neighbours left. The third stayed and assisted Bekki and Steffi in What Came Next. They did the laying-out together and then made themselves a cup of tea.

Bekki comforted Steffi - a woman who was over thirty, more than twice her age, for goodness sake - and then realised there was one other thing a witch had to do. It meant…

"Steffi, can you get a message to Mum? That I won't be coming home tonight?" She wondered if a tearful-eyed thief was up to it.

"I'll do that, Bekki, love." said a voice from near ground level.

It was Grindguts.

"Followed you here, did'n'I? One of your aunties, the dead ones, tipped me off. Told me the address and everything. Said she'd try to tell your dad, but he's stuck in a book right now. Sends her love, but she weren't going to manifest with Death around, just in case She noticed, you know, _got ideas_ , and anyway she thought you'd appreciate privacy at a time like this."

Grindguts grinned. He answered another question Bekki had not asked.

"Crossed the city on me own? No bother. All that practice at evading those bloody cats. Piece of piss!"

Grindguts grinned up at her, then disappeared in a blur of pixels. Imps did that sort of thing, she thought.

Bekki then spent the next couple of hours learning another essential fact about being a witch. That Sitting Up with the dead was bloody tedious and she was stuck with it till morning. She sighed, and hoped she could get back home, change into uniform, and be at school on time. She made herself comfortable on a chair, and wondered what she was sitting up for. It wasn't as if Mrs Elbow was going to come back as a Zombie or anything. At least, she hoped not. But it was one of those things that Had to Be Done, It was expected. She and Steffi sat on opposite sides of the shrouded corpse in the bed, wrapped in blankets, and tried to doze off.

In the early hours of the morning, she saw the black shape in the room. It had appeared from seemingly nowhere, as if summoned from somewhere terrible and evil for some inhuman purpose. First thoughts made her gibber a little. Second thoughts said "Wait and see."

She watched the dark, silent, shape that made no noise at all.

Steffi awoke. She stiffened, then relaxed.

Then the sinister dark spectre threw back the hood of its cloak.

"I bet you don't have the first bloody idea about how to organise a funeral." her mother said. Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled slightly. She switched to Morporkian. "End it looks like an old lady who didn't have fifty pence to jingle in her pocket. Need to talk to you about this, Steffi."

Bekki smiled. Mum being an Assassin had its advantages sometimes…

Johanna sat down with her daughter and Steffi and they talked about What Must Come Next. Johanna felt Alice might chip in a few dollars to help give Olecrana Elbow a decent burial. Were there any relatives who needed to be informed?

Bekki watched and listened and learnt. It was all an education.

* * *

 **(1)** It said a lot that the Watch employed only one wizard – and nearly a dozen Witches. Vimes considered that if he had to have magic-users in the Watch, he preferred the sensible and practical ones. Who were almost all witches and who knew how to use broomsticks.

 **(2)** _die_ _Fakulteit van Magie en Towenaarheid_

 **(3)** To my story _**Bungle In The Jungle**_

 **(4)** When a member of the nobility marries beneath their status. Not approved of in some circles.

 **(5)** BOSS had opened a file on her. Foreigner married to a citizen, a Witch, which is illegal under law, and an associate of the known subversive Smith-Rhodes family. Three good reasons. _And_ employed by a foreign government. Such dangerous people needed watching.

 **(6)** Her Hogswatch card list went into three volumes.

 **(7)** I'm not making this up. Look up Valentina Vassilevya and her husband Feodor. In Russia in the late 1600's, this amazingly fecund mother set the still unbeaten world record. They even got financial and material support from the local nobility who were proud of her accomplishment. Something to boast about to other nobles. It put the town of Shuya, Ivanovo Oblast, on the map, and gave it a local star.

 **(8)** There's a tale about this too. _The Seven of Coins_ , in _**The Discworld Tarot**_.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Fropm the current Fortean Times (no 360, Dec 2017): _Mkhkonyovu_ is isiZulu for "untrustworthy intrinsically dishonest person". Useful...**


	15. Volwassenheid

_**Strandpiel 15:**_ _**V**_ _ **olwassenheid- growing to adulthood**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

 _ **Might need expanding and working on but this sets the scene for the next big shift. Tidying in progress.  
**_

Johanna was having a drink with Annaliese. This was one of _those_ interviews with a trusted and valued employee who'd been part of the family for a long time. An employee, yes, but by now a family friend. The sort of situation that required careful and sensitive handling.

Annaliese had arrived, only just sixteen, shortly after Bekki's birth, to be nanny, nurse, surrogate mother, and a sort of general help to a working mother. She'd grown with the family and her working remit had expanded to take in first Famke and then Ruth. In the general flexible manner of these things, she had also cheerfully taken charge of three children belonging to the neighbours on either side, when called for. Sylvie de Roquefort-St Agur, the governess employed by Emmanuelle de Lapoignard for her two sons, had also been involved in collective child-care for all six. Sylvie and Annaliese had become friends. It had all worked out.

Now it was all coming to a natural end. Both were aware Johanna was conducting what amounted to an exit interview. Both were sombre about it.

"Bekki's fourteen," Johanna said. "And in the next year or two, she's leaving home. Well. Off to Lancre, anyway. At least it's a Rail Ways journey away these days. Or else, she can fly. Not _too_ far from home. She can be back here whenever she wants to, if she wants a night in her bedroom here."

Annaliese considered this.

"They grow up so quickly, Mistress Johanna." she said. "So very quickly."

"You're telling _me_." sighed Johanna. She refilled both glasses.

"Famke's almost ready for Big School. And Ruth's nearly seven. She's pretty much settled in at Sek's. There's less and less for you to actually _do_ here, Annaliese. You know I won't be having any more children."

 _I hope_ , Johanna thought.

Annaliese nodded. She looked one step away from tears.

"And your life involves children and working with children. Not to mention the young man in Howondaland I know you write to."

Johanna patted her nanny's hand.

"Listen, Annaliese. I have an idea. You leave my employment. That's inevitable. But I know somebody who's soon to have a child. She has a complicated working life that means she has to spend part of her week here and part in Howondaland. She is also very busy. She wants to return to work as soon as she can. She and her husband _really_ need a nanny for their child. What if I introduce you? We can see how it works out. And for part of the week, you would still be near my family and my girls, so you can still see each other. The downside is that while the child needs to speak Vondalaans, or nearest thing to, the mother speaks another language. It may be advantageous for you to take lessons. Shall we make arrangements?"

Johanna sighed. She'd have to sell the idea to Olga and Eddie. But she suspected they'd accept a flexible nanny who was willing to travel, especially if Johanna were paying a large part of her wages. It seemed best all round. Anyway, she owed something to Annaliese, after so long. _Including_ lessons in conversational Far Überwaldean. The sort that omitted most of the swearing.

* * *

"So Annaliese is moving on." Ponder Stibbons said. "She'll still be back here now and again. So Ruth doesn't miss her. But she'll be working for Eddie and Olga. And we're still paying her wages."

"For the first year, yes." Johanna admitted. "Or _most_ of her pay. A Naming gift for Olga and Eddie and their child. We owe her, and them, _something_. She's been part of the family for fourteen years."

Ponder sighed, then smiled at her.

"You know, Johanna, for somebody who's really careful with money, you can do some really generous things with it. Like that thing with the O'Hennigans."

Johanna had the grace to look a little shifty.

"Ag. Well. It's not as if we can't afford it justnow. The investments are paying off. And it won't be forever. We pay for the first year. Just to help them out. Olga's getting something from her family now. Some sort of trust fund. Gods know how Sybil Ramkin got _that_ out of her father. But she did."

"Lady Sybil. She knows everything about every noble family on the Disc. Or appears to." Ponder mused. "I suppose she knows where all the bodies are buried."

"And if _she_ doesn't know, Sam Vimes _will_." Johanna said. She smiled slightly. "I'm just betting Sybil danced once or twice with a very young Grand Duke. And kept the dance card in her memorabilia box. So to speak. Just to bring out when she needs to, and use to remind him."

"And the Cable Street Particulars keep their own dance cards." Ponder remarked. "And Olga is Watch. For part of the week."

"So she gets a trust fund." Johanna agreed. "Sybil was helpful too. On the other thing. She persuaded Mr Vimes that a large family, living in a slum house that's too small for them, with no proven criminality, was an ideal fit for one of his new housing estates. You know, the New Deal ones. He pointed out that he'd need somebody to stand guarantee for the rent and put up a damage deposit. Just in case."

Johanna sighed.

"Look, Ponder, I _do_ like Shauna. She's a good girl. Total privy mouth, speaks before she thinks, far too candid, often too loud, but a good girl. Her brothers are amusing and pleasant, but I made it clear that as they are at present, I would not trust _any_ of them any further than I could hit them with a throwing knife **.(1)** They got the idea and they have behaved, if they have cause to visit this house, or indeed to visit this street. And Shauna now at least has a bedroom she only needs to share with _one_ of her sisters. That's an advance on sharing a bed with three."

"Do you think we were meddling?" Ponder asked.

His wife shrugged.

"Perhaps. But I hope we interfered for the better. Things were difficult for Shauna's family. And I do like her mother. She has lived a hard life. Ag, she's fun to have a drink with! We agreed a pleasure of having teenage daughters is the opportunity it offers to mortally embarrass them, and have them shriek things like " _Mum, you're showing me up!_ " Never discount that as a source of harmless pleasure, Ponder."

Ponder winced. A group of SHS mothers had got together for a social evening. It had ended at about three in the morning with Shauna's mother and Johanna in helpless drunken shrieking laughter in the living room at Spa Lane. Their daughters had indeed been appropriately mortified. And having bonded, Johanna had been able to steer the conversation, on a more sober occasion later, to questions about how it must be hard, with twelve people living in and around so small a house? She had listened attentively to the replies. And made a few observations. Not even suggestions. Things, perhaps, to consider.

The O'Hennigans had soon moved, with happy and sweary optimism, to a larger and a newer place in New Ankh on the other side of the city wall from Dimwell. Not too far away. Their neighbours kept a wary eye out, but generally accepted a phenomenon of life lived in their midst. In the everyday bustle and give-and-take of establishing a whole new community of fairly respectable working people **(2)** setting up a whole new community from the ground up, they were, in the main, accepted. One part of that phenomenon stayed over at Johanna's two or three times a week. This too was accepted.

"Lady Sybil says if you've been fortunate in life, you have to pay some of it back, Ponder." Johanna said. "I agree with her. We _have_ been fortunate."

And life carried on.

* * *

Bekki felt consternated. And worried. She was sitting in Mother Superior's office, never a comfortable place for a schoolgirl to be. Being called to the Head Teacher's office was, ninety per cent of the time, _not_ a positive thing. The other girls in the class had given her knowing smirks on the way out, sure she was in trouble for something or other. Bekki had put up with this. It got you a Reputation. Getting a Reputation had its positive side.

Her parents were there. And Godsmother Irena. And a long angular very sharp-looking woman Bekki had never met before, but whose manner from some angles said _Teacher_ and from other angles said _Witch_. She combined both in a disconcerting way.

Bekki reflected that being seen to be escorted from Mother's office in the company of a Watch sergeant in full uniform would add to the Reputation. Which was for the good. She listened to the obligatory drone as attentively as she could.

 _Very capable pupil. Incredibly intelligent. It must come from her parents both being academics. Absurdly ahead of the other girls in most subjects. Frighteningly well read._

She watched the unspeaking stranger in the room assessing her. She was respectably but slightly shabbily dressed. _Teacher_. But mainly in serviceable black. _Witch?_ Her hat had seen better days and looked crumpled. But was that a hint of pointiness there, in the crown? _Witch. But not overtly._

"…though we'd be very, very, sorry to lose her, if she can take the usual end-of-school exams pretty much _now_ , there really would be no point in her staying on, and it frees up Rebecka to do other things, and go on to accelerated full-time vocational training." Mother Superior said, benignly.

The teacher-stroke-witch nodded silent approval and scrutinised Beki for her reaction. She had a not-unfriendly half smile on her face.

Bekki's head jerked up in alarm.

"But what if I don't _want_ to leave here?" she said, in alarm. "I _like_ it here. My _friends_ are here!"

"You have a career in front of you, Rebecka." Mother said, gently. "A career which more and more these days is being seen as a respectable profession. Indeed, it attracts a _great_ deal of respect. You've already been training for it, informally, since you were eleven. What's being proposed is a way for you to study for that career, full-time. Your parents are broadly in agreement. Your godsmother believes you're fit, and you've learnt as much as she and her colleagues can teach you here. So it's time to move on. And have I introduced you to Miss Perspicacia Tick yet?"

"Hello, Rebecka." said Miss Tick. "Nice for you to meet me. You can think of me as your careers advisor."

Bekki had met a Witch-Finder. A witch who was also a Teachers' Guild member, who toured the Disc scouting for talent. Every girls' school on the Disc got to know her. And who was now advising Bekki to finish her formal education here at least eighteen months' ahead of schedule, and to move to the Training Coven and the Circuit in Lancre and the Chalk.

"Good for you." Miss Tick said. "You've been learning how to be a City witch. Under guidance. Irena thinks you've done marvellously."

"I wouldn't go _that_ far." Irena remarked. "Above-average, perhaps. Better than expectations."

"But it's high time you learn about being a witch in the _country_." Miss Tick said. "And you're only a train ride away from the City. You'll still get time to go home for little breaks. We're not unreasonable."

Bekki looked to her parents. Appealingly. Her mother was stone. Unreachable. Dad shook his head slightly.

"You're a magic-user, Bekki." Dad said. "We've both known that, practically since you were born. You must go to a place where there are people who can teach you how to use it. And to use it well and appropriately. I've tried to teach you about being a wizard. Which is all I know. But I can't teach you how to be a witch."

Mother Superior smiled her benign smile.

"And these things become rather _intense_ after puberty." She said. "It can get disruptive in a school setting. Which is a consideration. I know you're well-adjusted, Rebecka. But what if you got angry in class and decided to settle your ongoing disagreement with Miss Lonsdale-Rust via magic? I prefer my staff to be in _human_ shape. Not, say, in the shape of a small iguana or a basilisk sitting on the desk flicking its tongue out at the class. Disruptive, and bad for discipline. As well as for staff retention."

Bekki realised Mother Superior had probably been here before. More than once. It felt like a practiced drill.

"You know, for a religion that preaches witches are an abomination in the eyes of the God with no right to live, you're being very understanding." Irena remarked.

Mother Superior smiled her nun smile.

"Oh, I know what the scriptures _say_." she said, dismissively. "I just happen to think that bit is complete tosh. We're a practical Order. If we can work with witches and learn from them, we do. For all I know, you people in the pointy hats might even learn a bit from _us_. We're the ones in the wimples, which are rather _non_ -pointy hats. But I like to think our aims and our goals point in the same broadly similar direction. Toilers in the same vineyard tending to the same crop, so to speak. We deal with people. We go where we're needed. We look after them and provide, insofar as we can, what they _need_. Which is hardly ever the same thing as what they think they _want_. No conflict there. And there's nothing in the Scripture about Wizards being abominations in the sight of Sek, who should be deprived of life and breathing privileges. We're enjoined to respect and accept them, as men of wisdom and ability."

She nodded at Ponder.

"Which to my mind is inconsistent, and, what's the new-fangled word, just a bit _sexist_. I take the point of view that in the original text, the word "wizard" is an ungendered noun applicable to magic-users of both sexes. Therefore we either respect them all, or we burn them all. And burning you all would be a waste of good firewood. And a waste of effort. As well as a shocking thing to try and do to some interesting, talented and often quite likeable people. Which only leaves one option."

She smiled.

We're doing School-end exams for the fifth form in four months time. Better get yourself prepared, Rebecka. And I'm just _sure_ you'll take them seriously, and strive to pass. And not to make any futile grand gesture such as deliberately _failing_ everything. I do not read you as being silly and immature in that respect. And there are always resits. _Multiple_ resits, if needs be."

Bekki, feeling numbed, returned to her classroom. Mum had said this was like switching school. And going to a sort of boarding school. To set her up for the future. Lots of girls switched schools aged around fourteen. It happened. She tried to think of advantages to it. And failed.

"You'll still get to see Shauna and Janey and Davvie and the rest." Mum had said. "Just… not so often."

She returned to her seat, aware the general unspoken opinion around her was that she must have done something really _dreadful_ and been caught, or she wouldn't be looking like that, would she?

* * *

Bekki stayed in her usual classes and streams, but was given a lot of separate work to do. Even Miss Lonsdale-Rust saw the advantages of getting a disruptive liability off her hands – their own battle over the War of Independence had been as bitter as the original – and was, unusually, even quite helpful. She was also given a lot of past Exam Papers to familiarise herself with and work from.

Her friends were suitably indignant when they heard. The general consensus of opinion was that Shauna's Gang would have lost something vital. Somebody important. There were lots of tears. Not all of them were Bekki's.

And in the meantime, she was dealing with the other thing. Her sister Ruth, now bereft of Annaliese, fled to Bekki's room for reassurance and comfort when IT started happening again. Bekki heaved a deep sigh and put her Science book down. SHS prided itself on being forward-looking. Science, a new-fangled topic area, was taught. Dad had been really helpful with concepts like basic Quantum. Strictly speaking it was too advanced for the syllabus, but Bekki had worked Quantum into some of her essays, just to make a point. She put aside more basic concepts in Physical Science like _force equals mass times acceleration,_ and hugged her frightened sister to herself.

She heard noise drift up from downstairs.

 _..because I'm your mother, that's why!_

Bekki winced. It had gone up to Defcon **(3)** Three, then. It tended to.

… _I don't care! Who are **you** to boss me around?_

She knew how this would end. She braced herself.

"It's alright, Ruthie." she said, reassuringly. "Just Mum and Famke being difficult to each other - again."

She heard the dopplering cry of _"I hate you!"_ as it stomped up the stairs. Accompanied by slamming doors. And sighed.

" I hate it when they argue, Bekki." her little sister said. She trembled and cuddled.

Bekki sighed.

"So do I, sweetie."

Bekki counted to ten. Then there was a perfunctory knock on her door. Famke came in, looking like an almost-eleven-year-old walking horror. A pre-teenage strop, in fact. She had been crying.

"Come here, you." Bekki said.

Famke sat down on Bekki's other side, She accepted a sisterly hug.

"Does that _really_ get you anywhere?" Bekki asked, gently. "With somebody like Mum?"

Famke sniffled.

"I know. And I do love her, Beccs. But she just winds me up so badly!"

"And this'll end like it always does." Bekki said. "You shout and you scream at each other. You storm upstairs for a cry. Mum has a cry downstairs. You don't think she doesn't? Then an hour or so later you go downstairs, you both say you're sorry, you promise never to have a row again, you hug each other, you both have a little cry. Then a day or two later…"

She paused.

"You're not the only people in this house. Don't you think it wears on _everybody?_ Look what it does to Ruthie. It gets to Dad. There's Claude and the servants. How do you think they feel?"

"I know, Beccs." Famke said. " _I'm so sorry_! How do you do it? You get on with her. You never have a cross word. You like each other. You never have rows."

Bekki considered.

"You know, up until a month or two ago, Annaliese was here. She's moved on to her new job now. With Olga's little twins. She used to be, well, you know, the go-to person for lots of things. Now she isn't here any more, the balance has changed, Mum has got to do a lot of things Annaliese used to do. Seeing more of you. Doing the things Annaliese used to do, but in a different way. You're not adjusting. You're having rows."

Bekki paused. "Also, I suspect it's because you're so bloody alike inside. I've never asked. But Uncle Danie once let it slip Mum used to have this sort of row with Ouma Agnetha when she was growing up."

Bekki paused. An idea had occurred to her. Mum had been…

Famke looked up.

"You mean… mum's turning into Ouma Agnetha as she's getting older?"

Bekki winced. The second thoughts of the Witch were screaming at her.

"Kay. I really mean this. Right now it would possibly be the worst thing ever if you were to say that to Mum's face. _Worst. Thing. Ever._ To tell her she's turning into Ouma Agnetha. Don't ask me why. I just _know_. Now here's what we're going to do. I'm going to go and talk to Mum. _You_ are going to stay here and cuddle Ruthie. She's really quite upset. Be her big sister. In half an hour, you will come downstairs and humbly apologise to Mum. Leave it to me."

Bekki went downstairs to fid her mother. She was being comforted by Dad and had also been weeping. Bekki quietly asked if she could talk to her for a while. Mum nodded.

Bekki took a deep breath, wondering how she could approach this.

"It's only going to get worse, mum." she said. "As Famke gets older. Slap me if I'm speaking out of turn here, but I think the problem is that you're both too alike. Neither of you knows when to back down, and the moment a fight starts, you're in for the kill."

Mum nodded and looked at Bekki.

"Look. Famke's going to come downstairs and apologise. You'll both hug and you'll kiss and say you're sorry. And it's all going to be quiet for a few days. But now Annaliese's gone and she isn't standing there in between you, and I miss her too, the two of you are going to run at each other again, and there'll be another fight. And another. And another."

Bekki took her mother's hand.

"Mum. Did you ever have this sort of fight with Ouma Agnetha when you were growing up? I'm betting you _did_. You were saying they packed you off to a boarding school when you were eleven or twelve. And when you never had to share a house with Ouma again, which I don't think you ever did after that, you started to get on. To appreciate each other more. Well then. There's your answer."

Mum considered this for a few moments. Then she reached over to hug her oldest daughter.

"Bekki. You're wise for your age. Maybe that's going to make you a good witch."

Famke came downstairs. She looked sheepish and woebegone, all the fight drained out of her. Mum looked at her for a few moments. Then they went through the post-row ritual of hugging and kissing and saying sorry.

Then Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled slightly at her middle daughter.

"You start at the Guild School in September." she said, pleasantly. "Well, slight change of plan. I'm not sending you as a day pupil now. You will be _boarding_. Raven House. I'll make the arrangements."

Famke's mouth opened in horror. She'd asked to be a day pupil. So as to go to school _and_ live at home. Now it was no longer an option.

"There is no way around it, Famke Cornelia. I think we've demonstrated we cannot live under the same roof as things are, without wanting to inhume each other. The fact one of us would be sorrowful and full of regret afterwards with an inhumation weapon in her hand would be no consolation. So you _board_. Even though you live within daily walking distance of the School. At the School you will of course address me as Doctor Smith-Rhodes, and you will see me as a teacher. Not as your mother. I consider there must be a little necessary distance between us for a while."

Johanna shook her head.

"You will be allowed to visit here on some evenings and at weekends. I'm not unreasonable, you are my daughter, and I do love you." she said. "But this is becoming necessary."

She reached out to hug both daughters.

"One goes to Lancre, one goes to the School." she sighed. "So it goes."

Later on, Johanna remembered the Blessings placed on Bekki at her Naming. About her being a peacemaker. and about it beginning here, in this house... she tried to recall the rest. Her daughter now had wings and could fly. She searched her memory for the rest. And winced. But that was in the future... wasn't it...

* * *

In September, Famke went to her destination as a boarder at Raven House, a fledgling Assassin. Bekki, now no longer officially a schoolgirl, took the train to Lancre, to learn more about being a Witch. The family had a leaving party for both. They left on the same day. It felt oddly symbolic of something.

Johanna cried when she got home, two daughters less. Ponder and Ruth hugged her for a long time.

 _ **To be continued…**_

* * *

 **(1)** Usually the phrase is "I wouldn't trust them further than I could spit on them/throw them". Not with career Assassins. Davey and Donal had got the idea quickly – Spa Lane might be affluent and good territory for theft, but an powerful lot of Assassins lived there. They'd just accepted the hospitality offered by Johanna and Ponder, made sure to be very polite _indeed_ , and walked their sister back home to Dimwell. The sister who needed a male escort home had also threatened to break a few bones if they tried taking the piss, as those people have been great to me and they play fair. You got that, you pair of shiftless feckers?

 **(2)** Fairly respectable by Ankh-Morporkian standards. Everybody had jobs to go to and nobody was _too_ criminally inclined.

 **(3)** A loan-word from Dwarvish, meaning "Right, so you don't think this here mattock is more than ornamental. How hard's your skull, mister?"

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **EDIT: I gave Olga twins (one of each) as it felt interesting and it fulfils the not-quite-a-curse that Irena put on her. Witches' words have _power_. And when a witch speaks about your children, even your unborn ones...**


	16. Varkensboerin

_**Strandpiel 16: 'Varkensboerin'. (Die liewe B**_ _ **oer van Varke)**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.**_

 _ **I asked - - how do you render the idea of "Pig Farmer Woman", or "Woman Who Farms Pigs" , in Afrikaans, or failing that, in Dutch? "Boer", or its feminine form, and the idea of "varke" or "vaark" has to come into it somewhere... might need local assistance here?**_

 _ **Dutch reader mvdwege kindly streamlined my original stab at the concept and gave me 'Varkensboerin' as an elegant concept. Dank je. This is now the chapter title.**_

 _ **Good point from reader bissek reminding me Ponder Stibbons also had a tough night fighting Elves, without benefit of a Johanna at his side. Story now amended to account for this.**_

 _To/:-_

 _Miss Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons,_

 _Year One, Raven House,_

 _The Assassins' Guild School,_

 _Filigree Street,_

 _Ankh-Morpork,_

 _AM1 1AC_ **(1)**

Hi Kay!

Well, life is settling down here in Pork Scratching, Lancre. Petulia Gristle, who is my supervising Witch, is letting me do more and more of the routine tasks about the steading, which covers both the hamlet of Pork Scratching and its immediate environ of smallholdings and Farms.

These mainly have to do with the welfare of animals, which are valuable and important, rather than of the people, who are not so valuable and therefore are expected to take their chances and not grumble.

Today I did what Mum would call, in official clinical language, a post-partuital eversion of the bovine uterus resulting in prolapse.

Mr Peradventure Tockley, the farmer, described it as "she's put her calf-bed out, miss." And appeared sceptical that I would know what to do about it, even though he was willing to let me try, on the grounds that "it can't do any harm, I suppose."

I suspect he was disappointed Petulia sent me out and he was experiencing the more experienced local Witch, and not the new girl. Well, he'd got me. And thanks to Mum and Uncle Danie, I knew exactly what to do.

I will spare you the full description as for all I know you may be reading this over breakfast. But this is an alarming-looking, but simple, condition to restore. Uncle Danie showed me how to do this on one of the Zoo's bewildebeeste. And if you can do this for a bewildebeeste, you can certainly do it for a normal milk-cow.

Suffice to say that after cleansing the afflicted area and ensuring it is fit to be returned inside the animal, you are then up to your shoulder in Cow for as long as it takes. Many procedures with farm animals involve your being up to the forearm in them at the very least. Often further up the arm, depending on the size of the creature. You have to be thankful that, unlike the proverbial hedgehog, they are in the main not affronted by this. My patient placidly stood there chewing the cud, while I restored things as they should be at her other end. The procedure may be likened to fitting a stubborn duvet inside its cover: you are surprised when after much fumbling in the dark it comes right and the ends of the duvet relocate to the corners of the cover.

But by the end I was up to my shoulder in cow.

I requested soap and hot water to wash in, and assured Mr Tockley that everything was now in order and the patient might have future calves as normal.

Mr Tockley just went "Eerrrr…" as did a couple of farm-hands who had gathered to watch the new Witch make a mess of things. They were standing around looking consternated. I wondered what the fuss was.

I had taken off my tunic, so as to have my arm bare for the procedure. Well, you do not think about these things. You just do the job that is in front of you.

Perhaps tomorrow, I should remember to wear a sleeveless vest underneath, over my bra. It might spare embarrassment. And my bra had become soiled, which was a pity. I like that bra. It was quite pretty and fitted comfortably. Ah well.

I mentioned this to Petulia, who is down to earth and practical. She said "Did you keep your pointy hat on?" I said I did. Petulia patted my shoulder. "Good. They knew you're a witch, and not to take liberties."

After I had washed and put my tunic back on, Mr Tockley diffidently said he also had a cow who wasn't firing on all cylinders, miss. Err. Her tubes are blocked, miss.

Careful examination indicated that this was a milking cow with blocked teats in her udders. Milk was only coming out on two udders and the other two quarters were swollen with milk that could not escape.

Mr Tockley's farmhands seemed disappointed that I did not take my top off for this one. I cannot help that. Well, this is also simple. As Mum showed me, in milk-bearing animals, solid matter can block the milk ducts. You also have to check for swelling and infection. There is a simple tool you use to gently, and so carefully, unblock the obstruction. Mum pointed out before I travelled that I was going to a place with a lot of farm animals, and she saw to it that I got a basic toolkit, of the sort used at the Zoo, with all the standard instruments. I must thank her for her foresight.

Well, Mr Tockley said about the cannula that "it looks like a corkscrew, miss!" I advised him never to use a kitchen corkscrew on any ailing cow, as this has a sharp point and can do more harm than good. Petulia says you can never be too careful with people, and not to assume they have sufficient common sense. This is her experience as a Witch talking.

Even as I said this, the plugs, composed of milk solids and other matter, crumbled and broke free. Then a torrent of long-blocked milk gushed from the freed duct and soaked my boots and lower legs. The cow mooed in relief. Mr Tockley shouted in some alarm "Don't waste that! Get a bucket underneath it!"

But at least Mrs Tockley allowed me to rinse and dry my britches in her kitchen and to clean my boots and socks, lest I go on to my next job smelling of cheese. I was also paid with three pounds of beef sausage and Mr Tockley saying he was right grateful to me, miss, and that I had healed two good cows.

While my britches and socks dried at the fire, I was able to do some chiropody for Mrs Tockley, who suffers from her feet something awful in the soggy autumn. I was glad she excluded all men from the kitchen as the girl's just walking around in her top and her knickers, so it ain't right, and if I catches anyone peeping I'll catch them a real ding across the ear, so be told!

Even so, I have now tended possibly thirty-eight farm animals, and only two humans. Petulia said it is most likely to be this way, and she is glad she got me. She has been told, possibly by Miss Tick, who my mother is and about how I got to see practice at the Zoo. Sending me to this Steading was not random.

How is the Guild School? It must be interesting seeing Mum, Auntie Heidi, and our informal aunts, as your Teachers. A completely different side to them…

love and hugs

your sister, Bekki

* * *

Bekki got off the second train at Hot Dang. It was still the end of the line. There was resistance locally to running the Rail Ways any deeper into Lancre. If you wanted to go to forn parts by train, the local attitude said, we ain't unreasonable. You gets to Hot Dang and you goes from there. Anywhere else, it's feet or ox-cart or horse. As it always has been. And always will be.

Bekki had travelled out of Ankh-Morpork on the Hubwards train, the Altiplano Express Line leading up into the hills and the mountains. Mum had ensured she was properly kitted out for her new life. Since Mum was most familiar with the requirements for boarding students at the Assassins' Guild School, and it had been expedient to get more-or-less two of everything when kitting Famke out for boarding, Bekki now had a large trunk in black-painted wood containing clothing and _lots_ of interesting equipment accessories. She didn't mind this. She suspected a lot of Assassin-grade kit would be useful in Lancre and, at least informally, she knew how to use most if it. At least, _in theory_. She also had a backpack for more immediate-need items. Dorothea the cook, who had wept to see her go, had packed a _very_ good travelling lunchpack for her. Given that the journey to Lancre was quite a few hundred miles, even travelling at sixty miles an hour for much of the way on the Flyer meant she'd be in the compartment for at least eight hours. Perhaps for longer. And as the journey was mainly uphill, sixty was a speed probably only achievable on the flat. Dorothea'sidea of a sustaining lunchpack for the journey would therefore, she estimated, see an average person right for five or six filling meals.

Bekki was wearing her Watch Flyer issue pointy hat to advertise her status. Her broomstick, which carried an embossed metal plate saying it was property of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, was sitting in the luggage rack, gently thrumming with magic. Mig Oyeff, the ground-crew-dwarf at the Air Station, had tuned it to within an inch of its life and really souped it up for her. It was a parting gift from the Watch witches.

However, there was a lot of luggage, and Bekki was now experienced enough as a flyer to know how bloody cold it could get up there, on at least a six-hour-flight up into the Ramtops. Train compartments were comfortable, and heated. Surplus steam from the engine was piped back to heat the carriages. Therefore she was going to do this one in comfort. To Let the Train Take the Strain, as they said.

She was comfortably dressed, in Howondalandian veldt khaki tailored after her mother's usual working clothing. Mum had taken heed of the recommendation that Bekki pack clothing suitable for farm work. Then she had smiled, and remarked that this was clothing _eminently_ suited to farm work. Everybody wore something similar at Home, after all, and we're excellent farmers. We even call ourselves Boers.

And, as Mum had also pointed out, it was rugged, serviceable, and above all _comfortable_. Bekki had to agree with this.

And as the train passed through places like Zemphis, Mum had also insisted Bekki go visibly armed, as a deterrent. She'd even been given Mum's second-best machete, with a coiled whip to hang on the other side of her belt. Bekki sighed. She could use both weapons competently. She'd had enough practice. And whips were fun, provided you didn't contemplate ever actually having to _hit_ anybody with one. She'd enjoyed learning some of the standard tricks from her mother – how to chop an apple into two neat halves, how to chop a candle in two, and how, in theory, to do things like safely bring down a running animal. It was nice to bond with Mum, and do things together that you both enjoyed doing, for sheer pleasure.

There was also an uncompromising-looking crossbow to hang over her shoulder, as another visible deterrent to the sort of people who hovered around Zemphis, like vultures.

Bekki had discovered the Railway Police had demurred at letting her on board. She'd solved this one. The amulet Grandfather Mustrum had given her had the Guild of Assassins badge on one side. She'd shown this to the policemen. They'd looked at each other, stood back, saluted, and let her aboard, fully armed. Mum hadn't needed to intervene. Instead she had smiled, kissed Bekki goodbye, and wished her a safe journey.

"And at the risk of sounding like your Ouma Agnetha, write home. _Often_." Mum had said.

And then, in the very early morning, the train had pulled out of New Ankh Station, her family and some friends on the platform, waving goodbye. Bekki had ached then, really hurt inside, wanting to call it all off, to go home, to forget about being a witch.

Her new life was beginning.

As the city receded and the cabbage fields began, she let the green monotony roll past unheeded and settled down to read. She thought you could never do enough reading.

The book was _ **Fairies, And How To Avoid Them.**_ By Miss Perspicacia Tick.

Olga and Irena had mentioned Feegle. She'd met some at the Air Station. Lancre had them in profusion, apparently. It was best to be prepared.

And the _other_ reason why Mum had insisted she take weapons to Lancre had involved Touching Iron. Mum had fought them once. Godsmother Alice had fought them _twice_. She had a set of special knives in her boot-tops that Godsmother Alice had given her, _Just In Case._ And both Dad and the other Witches had advised her, soberly, that facing down and defeating the Dungeon Dimensions wasn't going to be the only test. Witches in Lancre had an advanced ordeal to face down, and it surfaced from time to time. Dad had apparently had a terifying night in Lancre once when _they_ had turned up to gatecrash a wedding.

"So you get a good blade. And a crossbow that fires nice sharp pointy steel things. Steel is 95% iron. It does the job." the Assassin side of her family had said, practically.

 _For somebody who isn't an Assassin, I'm armed like one,_ Bekki thought.

It meant she wasn't bothered too much on the train, anyway. It was a quiet morning journey and very few people were travelling out of the city at that time of day. For a long time she'd had the compartment to herself.

Well. After passing through the lunar devastation of Seven Bangs – Bekki wondered what had happened here to make the place look like the fabled explosive-metal bomb had gone off **(2)** \- a group of nuns had got on in Fratchwood to travel to the Sekkian mission station at Zemphis. They'd got into Bekki's compartment, as if somebody had pointed it out to them. She suspected this was deliberate too, Mother Superior's way of pointing out that _lots_ of people were keeping an eye on Bekki. But they were pleasant company, and accepted a working witch completely. And by then, after several solitary hours, it was pleasant to have people to talk to.

She got off briefly to stretch her legs at Zemphis. The train was recoaling here for its next journey onwards. She had forty-five minutes to kill. She said goodbye to the nuns, who asked to be remembered to Mother Superior at the School in Ankh-Morpork.

An apparent Assassin dressed in Howondalandian veldt-chic, with lots of weapons and red hair, was given a wide berth and not molested. Two large gentlemen had hurriedly stepped aside, rather than impede her progress or trouble her day. She nodded and smiled at them. Bekki frowned as she heard a snatch of conversation behind her.

" _Is that_ **her** _? Bit young-looking, isn't she? Thought she'd be at least forty by now?"_

She sighed. Mum had a devious mind, and was well aware of her reputation. And that while many people had _heard_ about her mother, they'd never actually _seen_ her. _Another reason for dressing me up like her. Right down to the weapons. Everybody knows Johanna Smith-Rhodes carries a whip. Well, Mum cares._

Bekki found a second-hand bookshop. Even in one of the most lawless cities on the Disc, populated by thieves, rogues, adventurers and hard-eyed killers, you found shops like this, run by men with little round glasses in advanced middle age, who shuffled around in carpet slippers and wore fingerless gloves. She happily browsed, and bought some more reading. Books would fill the gap in her bag left by the inexorably diminishing food stocks provided by Dorothea. Travelling was hungry work.

She nodded to a large thickset man festooned with weapons who was browsing the Existentialist Philosophy shelves. She reasoned that even adventurers-for-hire must like reading too. There was only so much fighting that happened out there in the wildernesses, and no libraries _anywhere._

And then she was back on the train.

"Any bother?" she asked the person guarding her luggage.

Grindguts The Destroying Demon grinned up at her.

No bother, love. People tends not to linger."

She'd discovered by the time they arrived at Upper Feltwhistle that Grindguts had stowed away in a side pocket of her backpack. He'd apparently been popping up at intervals to smile pleasantly at potential Thieves who were eyeballing her luggage. Mum and Dad had known, but had not alerted her. She had sighed, accepted this and decided he could be useful.

"It was you or Famke, love. And I don't know what they does to Assassin students bringing demons with them. Your mum hinted that School Rules aren't flexible on this and anyway, Famke don't get on much with me. Nice girl at bottom, but we never really hit it off, know what I mean? Could have caused bother, and do you see me lasting in a place chocca with Assassins? Ruthie's got the dogs to watch over her at night. She loves them dogs. They love her. 'Sides, I wanted to see Lancre. Your dad said to me to keep an eye out."

And they changed trains, without undue fuss, at Ohulan Cutash. The line from here ran on to Überwald. Bekki girl-handled her luggage accross the platform and onto the shabby working train that ran on into Lancre. It largely carried freight, and had only one passenger coach. It was colder, shabbier and draughtier than the Altiplano Express.

And in one respect it was a singularly different train.

"Wow…" Bekki said, as the carriage jolted forwards and upwards. The seat she was in tilted back to the new horizontal and vertical. It kept rebalancing as the gradient underneath them changed. The noise of the train altered to a more powerful-sounding mechanical clunking. Gears engaged.

"They calls it a wossname, funicular." Grindguts remarked. Terrain passed them by at an alarmingly wrong-seeming angle, not helped by being viewed through windows that were skewed from the horizontal. She tried to look back, the way they'd come. This was a mistake. The ground seemed to slope a long alarming way behind them. Other passengers in the carriage seemed not in the least alarmed. It seemed wholly unremarkable to them. Bekki, remembering she wore a pointy hat, tried not to seem perturbed by this.

"Got to get people and freight up into the Ramtops." Grindguts explained. "Climb up a few thousand feet. Same train brings wood and logs down. Got to tilt a bit. To climb. And there's all sorts of cogs and gears and mechanisms and wossnames slung underneath. To help it climb and, more importantly, _grip_. And not, for eg, to lose traction and roll back down a steep gradient for a couple of miles at an ever-increasing and uncontrollable speed, and go _splat_ at the bottom."

"Grindguts, _please_ be less graphic." Bekki requested him.

She settled down to enjoy the ride. Or to try to. A precipitous tree-clad slope dropped away to her left down to a mist-shrouded valley. She tried not to guess how far down the bottom was.

About an hour and a half later, the train pulled into Hot Dang in Lancre.

Bekki breathed the thinner, but cleaner, mountain air as she stood on the platform, and realised there was nobody there to meet her. She sighed and looked for the address she'd been given…

* * *

 _To/:-_

Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes (-Stibbons), Witch

Highmost Pigmanhey **,(3)**

Pork Scratching,

The Kingdom of Lancre.

Pencilled note on the outside of the envelope _: I don't mind delivering the mail, but it's an awful long slog up here and takes a lot out of my day. Would you mind awfully, miss, if I ask you to collect from Lancre Town in future, say when you fly down to talk witch things with Our Mum? I'd be grateful. Love and hoping you are well, Shawn Ogg (Postmaster of the Royal Mail)._

Hi Beccs!

It's really really busy here but I've got Prep out of the way and there's an hour before lights out, so a lot of the girls in the dorm are catching up with writing letters.

Thanks for your letters! It sounds really weird and really rustic and really yukky what you're doing, but then you are a really weird big sister to have. (Still love my weirdo big sis, though) Fancy putting your arm up a cow's bum for a living. I hope you wash it afterwards and clean under your fingernails!

Missing you and Ruthie and Dad. I get to see Mum every day, though, although here I have to call her "ma'am" or "Doctor Smith-Rhodes". Auntie Heidi is "Mrs Smith-Rhodes" here.

Older students say it's easy to tell the difference, as Mrs Smith-Rhodes doesn't shout so loudly and she lets you live. We haven't had her (or Mum!) for any lessons yet. Auntie Heidi teaches things like Kerrigian Language and Vondalaans and those are specialisms. We're getting general teaching. She (or Mum!) might take us for some General Science, though, where it's about biology and animals.

Not enough weapons and interesting things. Too much maths, sciences, Morporkian Literature, Quirmian, Geography, and elocution and deportment. Boring yuk stuff. And Domestic Science. Mrs Mericet teaches that too. They also want me to do music. Playing the piano. Aaaargh!

At least we get _some_ Swords. Not with Auntie Emmie. Miss Perry-Bowen. She's okay, I suppose, but she wants to move me into a more advanced class because of all the training I got before School. I can't believe how clottish and clumsy a lot of the kids are! Didn't they have any swords training before they came here? Half of them can't tell the blade from the pommel!

Miss Perry-Bowen wants me to be understanding and she's using me to help teach the dunces how to hold a sword the right way round, but I really want to learn more things with weapons, and it's not happening yet. Frustrating!

Manni and Pippi have signed me up to be a RAT. That stands for Relatives of Assassin Teachers and Staff. Which makes it R.O.A.T.A.S., really, but R.A.T.S. sounds better. It's where we can all vent about being related to teachers. And we vent.

Davvie Bellamy is a member, so we get to meet in their house. It's really strange going back to Spa Lane and not being able to go into your own house, but being a guest next door. Davvie's mum, who is Doctor Bellamy here, explained that Mum wants me to sink or swim in the first term to see how I get on. So no contact with home, as I have to do this properly and all on my own. She says not to take it personally, as Mum's probably really hurting too. I should really get to grips with being a boarder. Not to want to run home if things get too hard. I see that, and I know Mum's going to have me home at Hogswatch, but I do miss everyone. Hogswatch is months away.

Apart from that it's easy to settle in here. There are twenty-eight other girls in the dorm and while Cassandra Venturi took a bit of a talking-to, everybody's okay and nobody's getting bullied. Much. Not after I had that little word with Cassandra Venturi. Now she thinks I'm bullying her, the cow, and Miss Lansbury the housemistress warned me to be more careful. She had stern words with all of us. About living together, being a family, supporting each other, helping each other along, and so on. And that any further animosity or squabbling between Miss Venturi and Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons would be punished, if it went on.

Missing you, my lovely weird but full-of-love big sister! See you at Hogswatch? Have you hit anyone with those weapons Mum gave you, or have you been far too soft and squidgy, as per? Waste of good weapons, if you ask me. Remind Mum to invite me home for the hols? She might "forget".

All my love

Famke

* * *

"Yes, ma'am." The stationmaster said. "There's a girl sitting on the platform, just got off the train from the Plains. She _must_ be a witch as she's wearing a pointy hat, but the _rest_ of it… well, come and see…"

Miss Perspicia Tick smiled a quiet little smile. "A kind of khaki uniform. With weapons. Red hair. Accompanied by a villanous-looking demon. Sounds like my girl. I'll go and see."

She went to collect Bekki and apologised for being late. One of those things. Now, the day's getting on, soon be dark. Let's get you to where you're meant to be? Too much luggage to fly with. Got a cart waiting outside. One of the drovers going up that way. Asked him to hang on. Coming? Grab your things. Oh. _And_ your familiar.

Bekki rode in a swaying, uncomfortable, bumpy farmer's cart for the last part of her journey, which continued the day's general trend of steeply uphill. Lancre appeared to consist of _steeply uphill._ The roads were more time-honoured compacted trails, with sides that sloped steeply either up or down. It was also difficult to see to far in any direction because of trees. And the cart smelt strongly of pigs. Miss Tick and the driver appeared utterly oblivious of this. Bekki remembered that the train that had brought her up and terminated here was being loaded with cargo for the journey back down to the plains. A herd of pigs had been driven into a livestock carriage. Those pigs mist have arrived here on this large long cart with the high enclosed sides…

An hour or so later, they pulled into a recognisable farmstead. It reeked of pigs. It _oinked_ of pigs. There were pigpens, pigsheds, open paddocks where free-range pigs were allowed to forage… what smelt like a slurry lagoon, hopefully situated downwind of the farmhouse… the whole farmstead was a shrine to all things porcine.

"Loads of pigs here." Grindguts said, thoughfully.

"Well done. Good observation." Miss Tick said. "This is Highmost Pigmanhey. So named because it is indeed quite high up and because it's been about pigs for a long, long, time. Five thousand feet above sea level, I believe. And this is where you learn about country witchcraft, Miss Smith-Rhodes. Let me announce that you've arrived…"

Bekki gratefully followed Miss Tick off the cart. The farmhouse wasn't bad. Large-ish. Two stories with extra rooms in the thatched roof space. Well tended. Clean. She waited for her mentor to return, in the company of a short wide man in his possible forties. He nodded to Bekki.

"How-do. So you're the new girl? Give us your luggage and I'll take it up to your room… blimey, this is heavy!"

They manhandled her trunk up several flights of stairs together. It took time.

Bekki was shown to a room right at the top of the building. The view was of slope and trees. But it was bright, clean and airy up there. She wondered about unpacking, but decided to go and see if her hostess, the local witch, was available and to make herself known.

"Our Petulia?" said her host. "She's down in the far pens right now. Out the door, turn left."

Bekki and Miss Tick went out the front door and turned left. The sounds, sights and smells of pig were everywhere. A chicken coop and some beehives were the only evidence of something other than a porcine monoculture.

"Got to have eggs with your bacon." Miss Tick said. "Balanced diet. Important. A honey glaze on the gammon is nice, too."

And then they met Petulia Gristle. Bekki had heard that the ideal Lancre wife should be able to carry a pig under each arm. Lancre husbands thought this an important wifely skill, apparently. Bekki had thought this was exaggeration. But Petulia Gristle really _was_ carrying a pig under each arm. _A yearling piglet, anyway…_

Petulia, a wide homely lady somewhere in her thirties, smiled warmly.

"You must be Rebecka!" she said. "Apologies for not shaking hands, but my hands are a bit _full_ right now… Ramtops Bearded Pigs. Good meat-bearers. Lots of promise."

Petulia frowned, selected a pigpen, and released the young pigs into it. They ran off squealing.

Then the witch assessed her new apprentice.

"That's a lot of weapons." She said, frowning. "And I've never seen anyone dressed like that before. I can see it's practical clothing, though. Lots of places to, err, hang swords and whips… umm.."

"Good farm clothing for where I'm from." Bekki said. "Well, where _half_ of me is from, anyway."

"Ah yes. The notes I got said you're Howondalandian… errr. And the weapons?"

Bekki patted the whip.

"Good for herding animals." she said. Then she patted the machete.

"Accepted agricultural tool at home. Good for chopping through stubborn things and large thick growths. Clearing land of things you don't want there."

"Like an inconvenient growth of Zulu warriors, perhaps." Miss Tick said, thoughtfully.

Petulia Gristle frowned slightly.

"As a general rule, we don't see many of _those_ in Lancre." she remarked. "We'd have noticed." Then she brightened.

"How good are you with _pigs_?" she asked.

"Did some warthogs at the Zoo." Bekki replied. "And peccaries and babirusas. Mum showed me."

"Transferable skills." said Miss Tick. "Always useful. She's had an introduction to the general idea of pork. The accepted ardiodactylian family of _suidae_ and the genus _sus_."

This time, Petulia Gristle smiled welcomingly and held out a hand.

"Welcome to Lancre." she said. "Shall we go and have something to eat? It's sausage pie tonight."

"Pork sausage, of course." Miss Tick said. "However, there will be pickled onions, piccalilli, and three types of mustard."

The three witches went back to the farmhouse together. Bekki had arrived in Lancre.

 _ **To be continued.**_

* * *

 **(1)** Postcodes were now in use in Ankh-Morpork. The general idea was that area codes were a great thing as they'd really _**zip**_ the mail along. Some people objected as they knew where they lived and people writing to them also knew where they lived. The Post Office could sort out everything in between, it's what we buy the stamps for, right? Changing everybody's address like this, not right. They're overcomplicating it. Too much to remember. There was also the unintended consequence, as postcodes spiralled roughly out from AM1 in the city centre to AM54 in the more outlying suburbs, of people with too much time on their hands actually complaining that they'd been designated AM2 as opposed to the more prestigious AM1. Didn't the Post Office _realise_ this knocked a few thousand dollars off our house price? We'll _sue_... And insurance companies seeing an AM8 postcode (The Shades) tended to use this as a barometer for pushing the premiums up. People living in AM8 tended not to have formal insurance anyway and took it as a badge of pride. Besides, people living in AM8 tended to contribute to pushing insurance premiums up _for other people_... (I am using real examples from the introduction of postcodes, related to the American zip code concept, in Britain.) **(1.1)**

 **(1.1)** To be honest, I should be adapting London area postcodes here, which are different from other British cities, as a model for Ankh-Morpork... WC1 would stand for Widdershins Central, for instance, and you'd have H standing for "Hubwards" rather than N for "North"... I may change this concept and retcon.

 **(2)** Seven Bangs is a sad tale. It involves immigrants from the Agatean Continent and lots of a condiment called grimchi which is made from fermented cabbage. The immigrants, from a previously obscure corner of the Agatean world and of a slightly different ethnicity to the dominant culture of the region, had simply taken advantage of being in Cabbage Heaven and fermented a critical mass of cabbage. Seven industrial-sized vats full of it. And not the pak choi of their homeland, but more aggressive _local_ varieties. The L-Space wiki has the full sad tale.

 **(3)** I know. A nod to _**The Weirdstone of Brisingamen**_ by Alan Garner and its sequel _**The Moon of Gomrath**_ , in which a young girl called Susan goes to spend the summer with rustic relatives in a remote corner of Cheshire, England, and discovers she too is a witch, as good as. She meets a Wizard, Dwarfs, Elves (the semi-nice kind), Goblins, Black Witches, Trolls, and the Lady of the Lake. The farmstead she lives at is called Highmost Redmanhey. Nice atmospheric childrens' books about witchy things in a corner of England which – then – had a lot in common with Lancre and possibly another source for Terry. Garner's Brollochan is a Hiver in all but name, for instance.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Well, after some in depth research and frankly becoming captivated by the essential guile-less charm of it, I wrote the tvtropes Works page for that cute South African children's tv show " _Liewe Heksie_ ", under my alternative online name of AgProv. I had to. I have to admit I do like that show. It's sweet and appeals to the side of me which is not a cynic. Also, the Afrikaans is very simple and clearly enunciated - as a kids' show it has to be. good for a learner. And if I'm working in lots of homage and gentle parody into this tale - even if it is obscure outside South Africa and pretty much an acquired taste you have to seek out - I really needed to get up to speed on the characters, the setting and the stories. It also has an ear-worm of a theme tune. Hulle noem my Liewe Heksie... **

Now. How to present Lancre as a sort of Bloemmieland, with the barren sterile winter kingdom of the Geelskabouter Lords and Ladies as Gifappeltjieland... how can this be subverted...

 _ **W**_ _ **elkom by Bloemmieland**_

 _ **(**_ hierdie pad om te gifappeltjieland)


	17. Verdegig

_**Strandpiel 17:**_ _ **Verdedig: Defending  
**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort, now easing, are a bugger, but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to.**_

 _ **Bekki is settling in in Lancre. We catch up with her a month or two further in.**_

The informal coven of Witches in Training had gathered together at a very significant spot. The word had gone out for them to be in this spot at a certain time on a certain date. Petulia Gristle had said she'd cover the necessary work in Pork Scratching, as it was important for Bekki to be there. She had then explained why. She had then explained the flight plan to her apprentice and told her what landmarks to look out for from above.

Bekki had dressed appropriately for the afternoon and had set out on the flight to Lancre town. It hadn't been too difficult; other witches were in the air. She just had to follow them. She had also realised her own high-performance Watch-standard broom could out-fly anything else in the air, and had had to throttle back a _lot_ to stay in touch with the others.

Spotting for other air-users was something Irena and Olga had drummed into her. The airways over the city were not exactly crowded. But Olga had once had a mid-air collision with a negligently flown magic carpet and had had to bale out **(1).**

Irena had also drummed it into her that El… _they_ … could appear in the sky at any time. Their yarrow stalks could out-manoevre almost anything. So keep watching. Spot other air users before _they_ spot _you_.

They'd even practiced ground attacks from the air, with crossbows. Mum had approved. Bekki had found it fun provided, you know, she didn't actually have to _kill_ anyone. Irena had tutted.

"Elves are not people, _devyushka_." she had said. "You had no problems killing Dungeon Dimension things? Well, then, Treat elves as if they were Dungeon Dimension creatures. Or Parsifal Venturi."

Irena had touched the metal tip of a crossbow bolt every time she said the word. This was prudent, apparently. Bekki had applied herself to the intricacies of firing a crossbow from a moving broomstick. It was an interesting exercise in relative speeds, angles and heights. Like geometry. So long as she didn't have to, you know, actually _hit_ anybody.

She'd also had training in using a parachute if she had to bail out of a stricken broomstick. Olga had insisted. _That_ had been scary. Olga had made her do it eight times, one memorable Saturday, learning to repack the parachute properly in between flights **.(2)** She had told her mother. Mum had then looked at her with an expression of perfect envy and said _she'd_ really like a go at that. Mum was like that, Bekki thought. Show her something with an element of exciting danger and excitement to it and then hold her back. If you could. Olga had generously said, well, if you want a go, Johanna…

Bekki had then watched from the ground, heart in mouth, while her mother, her actual _mother_ , who must be getting far too old for this sort of thing by now, had happily thrown herself off the back of a broomstick and deployed a parachute. Olga, her pilot, had spiralled down nearby and watched her come in to land, just as she'd done with Bekki.

"I like this!" Mum had said, with a really happy grin on her face. "I wonder if this is a trade skill the Guild could use? Stealthy insertion by night…"

Well, it's kind of nice to see your mother enjoying herself…

Bekki shook her head as she realised the other witches in the sky were completely unaware of her presence. They were not even _looking_. If she was that way inclined, she could have come up behind them with a crossbow, as Irena and Olga had taught her in lessons on how to deal with airborne Elves, and then…

Bekki realised she was thinking like an Assassin. _Probably inevitable_ , she thought. She saw the other Witch, who seemed younger than she was, visibly jump in the air as she introduced herself. Her broomstick lurched upwards by ten feet then dropped again.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." she apologised.

They flew on together to the meeting place, the Moot Point.

Her appearance provoked a slight stir among the others. She assessed them. A dozen or so girls. Aged between twelve and fifteen. Almost all of them seemed younger than her. All of them dressed in serviceable black, some in pointy hats that seemed too big for them. Bekki's bush-khaki stood out like a sore thumb. The only thing visibly identifying her as a witch was her own black pointy hat. She shrugged. That was enough. But the _other_ things about Bekki were attracting attention. She shrugged. Can't help that.

She examined the circle of standing stones. She felt a hum of muted power in the air. There was, if she focused, a noticeable aura of octarine in the air. The undergrowth around the stones was cropped down. She spotted glimmerings and sparklings in the grass around her feet. She examined this.

 _Nothing magical. Looks like metal shavings and filings. A lot of it is old and going to rust. The earth is taking on a red colour. Reminds me of the soil in Howondaland. On my grandparents' plaas. The earth is orange-brown-red there. Somebody has been adding iron and steel to this soil. They renew it with new metal periodically. The new metal still glimmers and glints. The old is going into the soil as rust. I think I can guess why…_

Bekki introduced herself to the other girls. They were all witches in training, assigned to other Steadings around Lancre. They all seemed excited and nervous. And very new. She realised how fortunate she'd been to have arrived here with several years of training and experience. This was rounding her out. A lot of the others were just beginning.

"Err… you're the _new one_. Who's with Mrs Gristle. The pig-witch?" one said, diffidently.

Bekki nodded. She really hoped she wasn't carrying the all-pervading smell of pig with her. She'd bathed thoroughly – Petulia Gristle had a very well-kept bathroom, by necessity – and had taken care to change into clean clothes.

She wondered why the other girls were staring at her. Then one, a petite girl who twitched a little, said

"Do you _usually_ carry that many weapons?"

Bekki realised all the other girls were pretty much un-armed. Maybe a short working knife here and there, but that was it. She sighed and adjusted the set of the crossbow on her shoulder. It was a good crossbow. Assassin standard. Over and under. Her mother had selected it for her. Mum picked _good_ weapons. Then trained her to use them They'd got through a _lot_ of life-sized iconographs of Parsifal Venturi.

"Better safe than sorry…" Bekki had begun. She eyed the standing stones again. Nottie had described them. And said to look for things that don't match. Don't met up at the edges. _That cloud formation. Hard to tell with clouds. But where it apparently passes behind the tall stone there. It looks odd. To the left of the stone it's solid. To the right it's breaking up into wisps. But you expect that to be sort of gradual over maybe an hour or so. Like halves of two different iconographs taken a couple of hours apart and tacked together._

"The, err, sword?" the nervous girl pointed out, diffidently, as if she expected a Bekki-shaped explosion at any time. "The whip? Those knives tucked into your boot-tops?" Other girls were watching too, some wary, some in open-eyed nervousness.

Bekki sighed and decided not to mention the pistol crossbows she'd discovered her mother had packed for her. _And_ all the extra throwing knives. After reflection, she'd decided to leave those at home.

"Howondalandian bush mechete." she explained, pulling it partway from its scabbard. "We use these et home for all kinds of things. Stubborn bush. Chopping wood. Clearing a peth, if you're trekking in the deep jungle bush."

Bekki had never been to a jungle. She'd heard enough, from relatives who _had_ , to consider the whole exciting area of jungle exploration was not for her. Aunt Mariella and her cousins could have the jungle all to themselves, as far as she, Bekki, was concerned. Jungles were for staying out of. Then she frowned. She'd starting pronouncing words like _path_ as _peth_. Her r's were getting distinctly rhotic, too. Her iccent – _accent_ \- and even her intonation had changed too, as if under a weight of unspoken expectations from the other girls.

 _I'm starting to talk like Mum_ , Bekki realised. _Like the way Shauna gets all Hergenian even though she was born in Dimwell. People expect it._

She looked around. Two older witches had arrived. She recognised the small round grinning figure of Nanny Ogg, who by common consent was Head Witch in Lancre. The second witch with her was slim, dark-haired, early or middle thirties. She had an unsmiling serious look about her. Not hostile. Just _serious_. She was the only other witch present who wasn't in black. She affected green. And carried it well. Something silver glistened at her neck. It shimmered as the light caught it. And this new witch was looking at Bekki, as indeed was everyone else. Searchingly. Exploringly. Bekki had an uneasy feeling she was somehow being read.

"Nice to have you all here!" Nanny Ogg called out, in a voice that carried. She did appear genuinely pleased to see everybody. Nanny was like that.

"We also got us a new girl. Met her when she was tiny and her dad brung her to Lancre. Could see it in her then that she had potential. Told her she'd be back, and sure enough, she is! Nice to have you with us, Bekki, love. This is Rebecka Smith-Rhodes. From Ankh-Morpork by way of Howondaland. And by the looks of her she's expecting a fight with somebody. Hope it's not us!"

The other senior Witch, who had not been introduced, nodded at Bekki. Bekki had the feeling that introductions weren't thought necessary, as everybody seemed to know who the Witch in Green was. Except her. She also wondered. _How old is Gytha Ogg? She looks no older than when I first met her. When I was five. It's ten years on from that. She seems to have frozen somewhere between sixty and seventy. But surely she's much older than that? She's already out-lived one best friend who she grew up with and must have been nearly eighty when she died. I know witches tend to age slowly and live longer, but still…_

Bekki heard the whispered voices from behind her.

" _Oh! I've heard about her_ _ **mother**_ _! That explains all the weapons!"_

" _So… she's an Assassin and she's also a witch?"_

" _Vetinari doesn't like that sort of thing…"_

And then Nanny Ogg had called everybody to order. She cracked a few jokes, then became very sober and serious indeed. She explained about the standing stones, the Dancers, which had stood standing here since time immoral. What they were, what they represented, and what they _guarded_.

They were a gateway. To the world of _Them_. Them buggers. Who had at least three times in living memory tried to break through. And who had needed to be _fought_. And guess who does the fightin', girls? _We_ does. _Witches._ We guards. We defends. We _protects_.

Bekki had heard this from Nottie Garlick, in sober late-night conversations when they had Touched Iron and spoken about Elves. Nottie's mother, the Queen of Lancre, had fought them. Twice. Nottie had spoken about both fights. They'd gone to the wire.

Bekki was taking no chances. She had come armed. Just in case. She didn't _want_ to fight. But something primal was calling to her. It was in her blood, for different reasons.

 _Sy skadu val 'n donker wolk;  
Oor die toekoms van ons volk;  
En veg ons nie sal ons verdwyn…_

Bekki saw the silent dark-haired witch in green regarding her thoughtfully. She felt that while her actual thoughts were not being read as such, the Green Witch was discerning the general underlying impressions.

 _Die dag van rekenskap is hier!  
Die Vyand jaag nou oor ons velde,  
Staan jou man…._

Bekki reflected that _donker volk_ could cover a _lot_ of pitiless enemies who cast a dark shadow over our fields. Not just human ones. Which indeed called for Holding Your Ground on a Day of Reckoning. If and when the Day arrived. The Green Witch suddenly gave her a half-smile and the barest of approving nods, then looked away.

They assembled young witches then heard about the wars with the elves which on two occasions had broken out of these stone circles. Bekki found her fingers closing around the hilt of her machete. It was a nice reassuring weight made largely of iron alloy with an even more reassuring sharp edge. She'd once used something like this on Dungeon Dimension things. She thought she could use the same sort of principle on Elves if it called for it. A witch standing next to her glanced down, then shuffled away nervously.

 _Godsmother Alice, when she gave me the special knives, showed me the iconographs she took. Somewhere around here, too, might even have been on this spot. When she inhumed two Elves and realised what they_ **really** _look like_ **.(3)** _When the glamour goes. Which it had, on the very logical basis that they were both dead. So hold that thought. You_ **can** _kill things that look like that. Easily._

"That's about all I've got to say. Any questions? Anybody"? Nanny Ogg invited them. There was a general stunned silence. The young witches appeared to be generally realising it wasn't all about doing the right thing for people. Even if the people didn't want the right thing to be done for them. And most of them had been clamouring to find out more about the actual, you know, _Magic_ , and when we get to use it. Now they were finding out about the Magic and one thing they were being trained to use it for. It wasn't, judging by the generally stunned expressions, what they'd anticipated at all.

Nanny Ogg grinned genially.

"I sees I've given you loads to think about." she said. "Now Mistress Aching's going to give you _loads more_ to think about."

Bekki now belatedly realised who the Green Witch was. Tiffany Aching, by common consent the most powerful Witch on the Disc. Stories were told about her. Irena and Olga had trained with her, in the first Training Coven many years before. She'd stood back, silently watching and assessing, while Nanny had explained about elves and how to deal with them.

Now it was her turn to lead the group.

Tiffany stepped forward and assessed Bekki.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes." she said.

Bekki bowed, in the accepted manner. Tiffany Aching returned a lesser bow.

"Let's say a group of the people who we are very carefully refraining from naming appeared right now and stepped out of the circle. And one pulls a bow on you." she said. "How would you deal with that?"

Bekki swallowed. But she smoothly unshouldered and levelled her crossbow, aiming at a point in between two of the standing stones. Trainee witches stepped quickly out of the way.

"I would shoot the _bliksem_." Bekki said, channelling her mother's training and the spirit of her deceased ancestors. "Before he had a chance to fire."

Tiffany Aching half-smiled again.

"But let's say two of them have bows?"

Bekki indicated the crossbow.

"This is an over-end-under crossbow, Mistress Aching." she said. "I have a second shot."

But there are four or five. And now they're charging you. Can you reload that quickly?"

Bekki activated the catch next to the trigger. Ten inches of sharpened steel _poinnggged_ into place, the last-resort bayonet that made a crossbow into a close-quarter weapon. One of the trainee witches yelped.

"I reckon I'd steb the bliksem." Bekki said. She was uneasily aware that the word _reckon_ had come out sounding like _rrricken_. _I'm dressed like Mum. I'm handling weapons. And I'm hearing about last-ditch fights that sound like Lawkes' Drain…I'm getting Howondalandian._

Bekki let the crossbow drop to the grass. The bayonet slid easily into the earth and it stood upright, quivering slightly, for fast retrieval later. She swiftly drew the machete, praying it wouldn't jam halfway in the scabbard. It drew in one fast motion.

"End the bayonet got stuck in his ribs." She said. "Shame. But I still have this."

Mistress Aching nodded. She seemed thoughtful.

"So your first thought is to rely on _weapons._ And not on magic?"

This felt like a test. Bekki thought before replying.

"Magic is good. I could have used a fireball. My father and my grandfather taught me. But weapons are better. More reliable in a fight. As my mother taught me. A fireball might fail. Just when you don't want it to."

This time Mistress Aching smiled broadly.

"Well done, Miss Smith-Rhodes. You've learnt a lesson about magic. Useful when it works. But a sharp edge is _even better_ in the right circumstances. The trick is knowing _when_ to use magic."

Nanny Ogg grinned broadly.

"Well done, Bekki, love." she said. "And one thing you din't point out is that this is a magic place. Chuckin' a fireball in the direction of the Dancers ain't a bright thing to do. Them stones might throw it straight back into your face. Which would be both a drawback and a bugger. What the foot-the-ball lads call a bit of an _own goal_."

Nanny patted Bekki on the shoulder. She grinned, then it turned into a thoughtful frown.

"Bekki. I feels and hears you is _jinglin'_ a little?"

Bekki sheathed her machete. Then she raised and lifted the hem of the tunic she was wearing. Mistress Aching, Nanny and the other witches looked closely at her.

"Errr… light-weight chain-mail. Partly iron. Just steel enough for it to be important. I knew from talking to people like Olga Romanoff and Nottie Garlic that el… what my mother's people call the _donker kabouters van die gifappeltjielaand_ …. mess with your head. Wearing iron guards against that. And this is really light mail."

Nanny Ogg shook her head and shared a look with Mistress Aching.

"You really come prepared, don't you?" Nanny said. "Still, your mum being what she is. Nice girl. Good with animals, your mum. Very thorough in her preparations. Methodical. Which is why she's still alive, I reckon."

The Assassin-grade chain mail shirt had been another gift from Mum that she'd found in her travelling trunk. No wonder Petulia's husband, Gouther Mossock, had found it heavy when getting it up the stairs to her room. Bekki tended to wear it under her tunic when dealing with _difficult_ animals.

"You don't want to take chances, Mrs Ogg." Bekki said, seriously.

Nanny grinned.

"Listen to this young woman." she said to the other girls. "Knows what she's about. She got useful skills. Reckon she could teach a few things. And she won't be too proud about learnin' from _you_ , neither. Cuts both ways."

Tiffany Aching nodded. It seemed almost appreciative.

"I think they learnt after the last big fight." she said. "I think, anyway. The word is from people who… well, cross both ways… is that a new Queen's rising. We don't know much about her yet, but we're keeping an eye open. Watching."

Bekki had been around Assassins all her life. She knew a little of how these games were played, having seen enough to infer how the Dark Council stayed so frighteningly well informed. So Lancre witches had a sort of intelligence-gathering network in the world of magic. Agents. Spies. And Unseen University watched the other worlds and dimensions too. Dad had said it was a deeper duty of Wizardry. He'd had quiet late-night chats with Olga and Irena where Things Were Discussed. At the higher level, Wizards and Witches could work together for a recognised Greater Good. Grandfather Mustrum had arrived at his own quiet understanding with the fabled Mistress Weatherwax, she had heard.

The young witches were issued protective gloves and motioned towards several large sacks.

"Job for you." Nanny Ogg said, genially. "Collected all this form various workshops and things about the place. The goblin lads at the Rail Ways helped get it together. They know the need. While we're up here, we can renew the Defences. Get crackin', then we can have a bite to eat."

The girls then spent an hour or so distributing the contents of the sacks evenly around the Dancers: Bekki realised where all the bits of metal had come from. Factory and engineering waste, metal shavings, filings and fragments, mainly iron and steel, methodically swept up and collected. Spread evenly round the Stones, so that any Elf trying to cross a field of metal would get very sore feet indeed. They'd mind _that_ field.

Bekki had seen a stack of long Rail Way sleepers, very long metal rails, parked for ready use next to the track on her journey up. She wondered out loud if some of these could be buried in the ground round the Dancers, say in a sort of regular octagonal pattern, a sort of magic circle. Nanny Ogg considered this.

"Our Neville could pick them up." she said. "Take a cart down by night. Do some salvage. Not a bad idea, our Bekki!"

Bekki grinned. The Watch had a big file on Neville Ogg, who indeed, among other things, salvaged scrap metal. Generally unattended lead on peoples' roofs. Olga had shown her once.

And afterwards, she had talked with Tiffany Aching, who seemed interested in her. Bekki had talked about her family in Howondaland and about the stories her grandparents told, and that she'd been interested about how the things emigrants had taken from Sto Kerrig and the Sto Plains had met the legend and stories of the Howondalandian natives, and a sort of consensus folklore had begun to emerge.

The way the bogeyman, _die Boeman_ to Sto Kerrigians, had met the native thing about the _tokoloshe,_ a dark spirit that frightened by night, for instance. Something else had emerged, a mixing of the two. The _impondulu_ , the native Howondalandian vampire. About were-leopards, where the Central Continent had werewolves. Her mother had fought them once.

And according to Mum, and behind her, Oupa and Ouma, Howondaland had elves, or a sort of elf-like entity. Both witches carefully touched iron.

"I'm not sure, but I think people from Sto Kerrig took the idea or the memory of things like _Pukke, Staalkaren, Styffen, Kabouters_ and…" Bekki touched iron, "the _Dwaalichten_ with them. We just refer to _kabouters_ , anyway. Who can be good or bad. There's an old legend of the good people living in Bloemmielaand, where everything is really fertile and lots of flowers grow. And next door is Gifappeltjielaand, where… nothing grows. Permanent winter. The people living there are… not nice. The legend says the good witch guards the border to stop things crossing. It _must_ be a legend, as her people guard her and love her and cherish her."

Tiffany nodded.

"Lots of truth in legends. Although I agree a bit more love and being cherished and looked after would be nice." she said. "Poisoned Apple Country is your name for… _that place_?"

"Nice and poetic? Anyway, the natives have lots of stories about things living in the deep jungles and the dark places. A Zulu I know told me about her people's legend of the Emere and the Bisimbe. They come out of a dark winter place in the mountains or come into the jungle to make it barren. They play with peoples' heads and like killing them in sadistic and inventive ways. Our geelekabouters, the yellow-elves, and their Emere. Imagine those getting together?"

Tiffany considered this.

"Maybe that's some sort of justification for apartheid." she said. "I can see it would be a problem if those two sorts of Elf ganged up. Better keep them separate! Now. Fancy a stay on the Chalk sometime? No hurry. You're just doing fantastically well here. Petulia's really pleased with you. I'd like to see you in my country sometime."

They sat back, enjoyed a quiet drink, and endured Nanny Ogg regaling the main bar of the Goat and Compass with the song about the wizard's staff having a great big knob on the end.

 _ **To be continued.**_

 **(1)** Happens _**in Slipping Between Worlds**_. And yes, I know…

 **(2)** one of those theoretical ideas from the fertile brain of Leonard of Quirm. The Air Police had found the notes and asked how they could make it really _work_. They found it useful. And fun. It had saved Olga's life after the mid-air collision with the Magic Carpet. Eight jumps, with increasing degrees of complexity and hazard, are the _minimum_ for getting your jump pay from the British Parachute Regiment.

 **(3)** Alice Band's first run-in with Elves is described in my tale _**The Lancre Caper**_ , in which she realises why nobody ever seriously tries to perpetrate Archaeology in Lancre. Nobody can be that Stealthy. Alice is tempted by the Elf-Queen who tries to get in where she is weakest and can be most easily tempted… The Guild of Assassins employed her iconographic evidence of what elves really look like, and her strategy for inhuming them, as a part of some _very_ specialised tuition.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 _ **Extract from a PM to reader Freyalyn:**_

 **Alan Garner is overlooked a lot as this is a shame - he's yet another influence on the Discworld and when you know what to look for, the clues are there. He wrote about Alderley Edge, Cheshire, as it was half a century ago - before the rich and tasteless moved in and destroyed its character. Back then, a remote farmhouse in the hills populated by people straight out of Lancre who get embroiled in the other world that co-exists with theirs... got to be incorporated onto the Disc somewhere. And unless I'm wrong (will re-read) Petulia Gristle's husband isn't named... I want to give him a name almost like Gowther Mossock (wonderfully Lancre) to see if anyone notices. And Petulia, I think, will get the middle name Elizabeth - which shortens to Bess. Making her non-witch married name Petulia Bess Mossock...**

 **Take a close look at the Hiver, btw. Then re-read the description of the Brollochan. And in Garner's "** _ **Boneland**_ **"... there's a description of life coming out of stone eggs with the sound of flint-knapping being represented as "Tak, tak, tak..." so homage cuts both ways!**

 _ **Extract from PM reply to reader CarrieVS, who pointed out a little issue:**_

 **slipped up on that one.. the four-chambered stomach of a ruminant is not a direct equivalent to human... yup. Veterinary science on the Discworld is really a matter of trial and error and is probably still in its infancy, like the situation that prevailed before James Herriot went to the Glasgow training college in the early 1930's. Herriot vividly describes a rather hit-and-miss process based on a combination of intuition, some scientific remedies, a satchel of approximate remedies based on centuries of haphazard practice and practical experience, combined with crossed fingers and hope. He says he was lucky to graduate and start practice in the 1930's when all of a sudden it all came together with massive leaps forward in terms of the pharmaceutical and the scientific.**

 **Elsewhere I have Johanna slipping up in an encounter with a unicorn and who has Doughnut Jimmy Folsom standing on the sidelines drily saying everyone who deals with animals has to learn the Herriot Manouevre at some point in their career - ie, when to cut their losses and run for safety, however inelegant and embarrassing it is. (Shortly afterwards, although it isn't covered in the story except as an aside, she gets to play catch-up with a group of invading Elves, and to explain how pissed off she is about the unicorn they let loose in Ankh-Morpork to distract everybody while they moved in. She's still here. The Elves presumably aren't.)**

 **Vet practice on the Disc, I think I related, involves groups of overlapping practitioners who each have a species affinity - Doughnut Jimmy with horsey things, Petulia Gristle with all things porcine, the Aching women with sheep, Sybil Ramkin with dragons. Each is an expert in their own field and gets a lot of broadly transferable skills. Johanna I see as one with a general knowledge of farm animals due to her early experience at Home, combined with practical observation of native Howondalandian fauna she's seen on the Veldt and elsewhere. Add in her experience with those species the Guild of Assassins cultivates for its own specific purpose (the Animal Management Unit) and skilled pupils such as Arachne Webber who specialises in one sort of animal to the exclusion of all else. And then she gets a Zoo of her very own and an unparelleled opportunity to build on this and become a generalist. Knowing Matron Igorina, who plays the Bones role to her Captain Kirk, is a help: and what the Guild teaches in terms of human anatomy, and how it all fits together (and may be dismantled or otherwise). Her sister Mariella even gets to show off a bit - the incident where she identifies the reason why a horse is lame and follows diagnosis with the correct remedy. Straight out of Herriot too - that's the incident that convinced Siegfried Farnon to offer him a job. (Herriot diagnosed a lame horse with laminitis and bored a hole into its hoof to explode the abscess underneath; messy but direct. As I recall, iodine plus turps to disinfect the wound site made a spectacular purple cloud).**

 **By the time of these stories she's probably in her early forties and the Zoo has been there for at least eighteen years. Time enough for a woman with a passion for animals to become a largely self-taught veterinarian. And with an oldest daughter who shows talent and learns quickly (assisted by Witch skills her mother does not have).**

 **You are right, though - better find a better analogy for transferable skills than a cow's stomach!**


	18. Herfsreën

_**Strandpiel 18: Herfsreën – Autumn Rain**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort, now easing, are a bugger, but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to.**_

Bekki was back at the Dancers in the company of Tiffany Aching, Nanny Ogg and Petulia Gristle. She noted that there was a target set up, a standard competition archery bullseye, with its concentric rings and divisions. As this was Lancre the rings were painted on in a wobbly sort of way and the frame it stood on was makeshift. But Lancre's archers **(1)** found it good enough to practice on.

"Humour me." Tiffany said. "Take a shot. Several, if you like."

Bekki shrugged and sent three crossbow bolts down the makeshift range from about a hundred yards. Three quick aimed shots. Two bulls and an inner. Mum had taught her thoroughly. Bekki liked the abstract exercise of competition shooting. It was good exercise, it tested her abilities, and she wasn't being asked to, you know, fire at actual living _people_. And putting a crossbow quarrel _exactly_ where you intended it to go was always satisfying. You know. As a challenge. A skill to master.

The other witches nodded appreciation.

"Good skill." Nanny Ogg said. "Not showy. She can put her money where her mouth is. Bet she can use that sword, too, and it ain't just for show!"

"Never thought it was." Tiffany said. "You have to be stupid to wear a sword you can't actually use, if somebody calls your bluff. _And_ I've heard about her mother!"

She nodded to Bekki.

"Okay, we've established that you can actually shoot." she said. "Now we're just going to move the target…"

Tiffany, with a little effort, pulled out the three quarrels from the target and handed them back to Bekki. Then she and Petulia lifted the target and its frame together, and moved it twenty or so yards to the right. Bekki noted they took care to position it not quite between two of the standing stones of the Dancers. But, very very carefully, just in front of a notional line in the ground connecting the two.

"Now try." Tiffany said. Bekki reloaded, wondering where the catch was. There had to be one. She shrugged, then sighted carefully on the bull, at around seventy yards, no cross-wind…

The shot went hopelessly wide and impacted into one of the standing stones, nine feet away from the bull. Puzzled, she tried again, sighting on the bull. Again the bolt shot off to the side and hit stone. It audibly clanged.

As she reloaded, Bekki wondered if some odd local condition was acting like a strong crosswind and causing her shots to drift off target. She compensated this time by aiming nine feet to the left, reasoning this would being her back on target.

This time the shot impacted the standing stone to the left of the target. She tried to compensate with her fourth bolt. Again it hit the left-hand stone.

Puzzled, she looked at the others.

Step up this way." Tiffany said. "Oh… take your sword off first? And are you wearing that chainmail shirt today? Better strip off. You'll see why."

Reasoning that this time there weren't any men around, Bekki took a minute or two to adjust her clothing. The mail undertunic, lightweight Assassin-quality mail, jingled to the ground. Then she walked with Tiffany to the stones. Tiffany invited her to retrieve her crossbow bolts. They had not penetrated the stone as such. Nor had they bounced off and dropped to the ground. They just appeared to be stuck there, at odd angles to the stone.

Bekki took one by the shaft and pulled hard, It took some tugging and seemed not to want to let go. She tried to remember what Godsmother Alice had said about her encounter with these stones. Something was important… and her father had said he'd been here too. Something about _stone with a love-of-iron_ …

"It's the love-of-iron, isn't it?" Bekki asked. She wrenched one bolt loose, with effort.

"She's gettin' it." Nanny Ogg said, grinning.

Tiffany Aching nodded.

"A few days ago, you expressed a willingness to shoot at anyone who stepped out of that stone circle." she said. "I didn't want to tell you then, in front of everybody else, that you'd probably only have hit them if they'd been standing directly in front of a stone."

"Because the stones pull anything made of metal to them." Bekki said. "Like an arrowhead in flight."

A horrible thought struck her.

"If I'd come close to this stone with chainmail on…"

"You'd have stuck fast. Hard to get out of. Like a fly on sticky paper." Petulia Gristle said. "Errr… we decided it was best you knew. In case of accidents."

Bekki breathed out.

"Thank you." she said. It occurred to her that two out of the three witches she was with were quietly enjoying this. She wondered if this was what Mum might call _correcting an overconfident pupil._ The witch version.

"And any sword or weapon with iron in would be just as useless." Bekki said.

"Love of iron." Tiffany Aching agreed. "All these stones have got it. Only seems to work if you're within five feet, though."

Bekki thought quickly. She recalled what else Godsmother Alice had said. She also wanted to get one back.

"So being close to these stones neutralises weapons. Weapons with iron and steel in."

The three older witches nodded.

Bekki smiled slightly. She reached down and pulled a knife out of the built-in scabbard in her boot-top. Assassin footwear **(2)** incorporated things like this as standard. Mum had taken her, and Famke, to a specialist leatherworker who knew _exactly_ what was needed.

" _All_ weapons?" she asked. She considered the boot-knife for a second, then laid it against the stone by the length of its blade. She withdrew her hand. The knife clattered to the ground, spurned in romance by the stone. A second blade was similarly jilted.

She took a certain pleasure in seeing Tiffany Aching pick it up, and how she tried hard not to look puzzled. Tiffany tried to stick it to the stone again, realised it wasn't going to, caught it by the hilt as it dropped, and then studied the knife in her hand.

Then she realised.

"This isn't steel. It's made of metal, but it looks wrong. Feels wrong, somehow. It's slightly the wrong colour and it doesn't look like steel. Feels a little lighter, too."

Bekki grudgingly gave the older witch full marks for being observant and intelligent.

"My Godsmother, Miss Alice Band, gave them to me as a going-away present." Bekki said. "She was hoping to get me some crossbow bolts with heads in the same metal. But till then, I've got to make do with ordinary steel. I'm not sure of the specifics, but Godsmother Alice said these blades are in something called a titanium-tungsten alloy. The Dwarfs make them, but they're incredibly expensive. She said they're, what's the word, completely un-magnetic. No iron whatsoever. My Godsmother said she'd had to use these knives when she visited Lancre. And that they were worth every dollar, when she couldn't use iron. I think I see what she was trying to tell me, now."

Tiffany handed the knife back, with a little smile on her face. Nanny Ogg whistled.

" _That_ Alice Band? And she's your Godsmother? I remember. Long time ago now. Before she became an Assassin. She killed two elves here. Well, not right _here_. Round the other side, between the Piper and the Drummer. Whoops, nearly forgot."

Nanny reached down and touched Bekki's chain-mail. In a perfunctory way, and quite a lot later than people usually did when _their_ names were mentioned.

"If you wants to pick that up, love, and your sword, we'll walk round to the spot where it happened, and I'll tell you. I was there. I seen it. Knew then young Alice was going to become an Assassin. Got the killing streak."

And Bekki heard the story, on the spot where it had happened, _exactly_ the same spot, how Godsmother Alice had killed two Elves, quick as blinking, who were taunting her that while they could shoot her from inside the circle of stones, she was incapable of retaliating with her iron weapons, as the stones would not allow her to.

"They said _that,_ did they?" Bekki said. It was a reversed-whistle-through-the-teeth moment. "To Godsmother Alice? Told her they were going to shoot her, and she was powerless to do anything about it?"

Bekki shook her head. Some people really could get _overconfident_ …

"Then we seen her, me and Esme Weatherwax, _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods_ "

" _MayhersoulhavemercyontheGods!"_ the other witches chorused, ritually.

"And then young Alice _grins_. And that grin from young Alice Band is not the sort of grin you ever wants to see bein' grinned at you. And, no hesitation, no messin', she's got these two knives out, and they goes right through in between the stones and drops the Queen's two bodyguards. Dead. Shut the Queen right up, let me tell you. She goes a-running, scared, knowing she'll be next. Just wish Alice had had a _third_ knife on her to throw."

A thought struck Nanny Ogg.

"And these is the same knives. Bekki, love. I'm just bettin' somethin' is watchin' us now from inside the circle. We can't see it. But they _watches._ Just as we watches _them_. Show them the knives."

Bekki faced the gap between two stones. Where her Godsmother, a long time before Bekki had been born, probably only a few years older then than Bekki was now, had killed Elves.

Feeling a little silly for doing this, but also knowing full well that empty space in front of you didn't necessarily mean there was nothing there, she raised the two throwing knives.

"Do you remember these knives? Take a good look. Their last owner killed two of you with them. These knives are mine now. I don't want a fight, but if you come here seeking to do hurt or harm or injury, you'll feel them again. They've got your peoples' blood on them. Whether they get any more of your people's blood on them, or not, is up to you."

Bekki stepped forward, feeling a bit of what Irena and Olga called _boffo_ was called for. She dragged her heel in a rough but definite line between the two stones.

"In the language of my mother's people. _Trek ons die lyn_. That means something to my mother's people, who are _mine_ too. You cross this line, which I swear I will help to hold, and you will get trouble. _Belowe pyn en smart._ You may never have met Howondalandians before. Find out about us. When we say we will stand fast, hold the line and fight you where we stand – we mean it."

Bekki held the two knives up. She was flying now.

"Weapons with a history should have names. This knife is now _Pyn_. This knife is _Smart._ And the pain and the hurt they promise will not be mine!"

Bekki got her answer: a short and unmistakable flurry of snow and ice, a sensation of an unbearably chill winter, and a leaden grey sky stretching over a snowfield that went on as far as the eye could see. Then it cut off, as quickly as it had started.

"Well done." Tiffany Aching said, at her side. Bekki came back to Disc, realising Tiffany and Nanny Ogg had been standing just behind and to either side of her. "You swore a vow. Witnessed by us. It had to come from you. In this place there had to be a Three. To remind them we are watching, and new witches are arising all the time. That we are not weak, and witches come to us with surprising backgrounds and skills."

"A Witch who can use weapons like an Assassin. Even if she don't want to. Trained by Assassins. On the fly, admittedly, but trained by the _best._ Never been done before." Nanny Ogg said. "And with one foot in a country that don't do witches very much. First one from her country that we've met. New ideas. New ways of thinkin'. Something new."

Nanny grinned. A big cheerful almost toothless grin. She reached over to pat Bekki on the shoulder.

"You did good, girl. We got a _defender_ in you. Reckon she'll do, Tiff?"

Tiffany Aching smiled.

"Yes. She'll do. But right now, I want to get her trained up on sheep. You can't be an animal-witch if you don't know too much about sheep. But no hurry."

"Err..." said Petulia Gristle, the disregarded fourth. She'd felt the elf-world too.

"We give 'em a message." Nanny said. "They heard. They'll tell the Queen. And they'll think again about coming back. That's enough for today. You brung some good cuts of pork with you, Petulia? Good. I'll get one of the girls crackin' on cooking it for our tea. Leave that target. I'll send one of the lads up to collect it. Those buggers over there can look at the holes in it, and reflect on our havin' a girl who can shoot straight. Among many other things. A _defender_. Let's get on our broomsticks and back to a warm kitchen, shall we?"

"Just let me get my mail shirt back on, Mrs Ogg." Bekki requested. In this place she felt oddly exposed without it.

* * *

 _To/:-_

Mrs Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons

And Professor Ponder Stibbons

18 Spa Lane

Nap Hill

Ankh-Morpork

AM3 1DL

Liewe Ouers / Dear Mum and Dad.

Well, it's getting interesting here up in the Ramtops. Winter is almost here, and we are concentrating on all the things we need to do before the snow and the ice really set in. Autumn in Lancre is usually wet with lots of rain. Plenty of rain. The rain is beginning to get colder and Petulia and Gouther tell me it will turn to snow soon. I believe I Have Been Warned.

Gouther and the men have been out cutting firewood for the winter. The log piles are growing huge on three sides of the house and there is no sign of their stopping soon. I have been learning about dealing with those little accidents which beset men who use axes and saws. Fortunately there are Igors down in Hot Dang, where the lumberjacks are, and they are skilled in reattachment of fingers, hands, feet and in extreme cases whole limbs. Petulia and I have had to stabilise wounds, do basic stitching, and fly emergency casualties, plus any detached parts, down to the Igor station.

I had to deal with one of the Mobberley brothers, who had heard about steam power and thought they could harness it to make what they called a Saw with Chains for fast felling of trees. I can see the idea might one day work, but right now it requires thought and more careful experimentation than the Mobberleys could apply. The Igors think Sensibility Mobberley will be up and walking on his new legs within the month.

Lumberjacks in Hot Dang are a strange breed. Your thorough training in foot care is appreciated, by the way. I respect your advice that high heels should be avoided as they force you to walk in an un-natural and an uncomfortable way and leave the feet prone to bunions and other ailments. You sincerely believe that women should avoid them as far as is practicable as they are Bloody Uncomfortable. I agree.

Well. Try telling this to Hot Dang lumberjacks, many of whom have imported the unique lumberjack dress which is a custom in Aceria. And I use the word "dress" literally here. And high heels. And lingerie. Apparently in Aceria this is Traditional. A lot of the lumberjacks here are from Aceria and are bringing their traditional skills to Lancre. The pub in Hot Dang is therefore an international and a cosmopolitan place that is accepting of their little quirks. You see a lot of strange sights in there.

At least I speak Quirmian. Thanks to Auntie Emmanuelle and especially to Madame de Badin-Boucher, who taught me all about _sacrées_ as used in her native Quirmian Aceria. **(3)** It surprised the lumberjacks when I was able to speak to them in their native language, together with carefully applied _sacrées,_ about how high-heeled court shoes are not suited to hard work in a forest. Not even for women. On a man of six feet and eighteen stones in weight… but as they say, some things are Traditional. At least many lumberjacks, both native Lancre men and the immigrants from Aceria, are dressing more sensibly for everyday work and saving the more exotic clothing for leisurewear and special occasions.

I also thank you for the alchemical recipe for worming draughts suitable for pigs and the advice as to how to make them up. Petulia and I did two or three hundred beasts with them. At least with piglets, you can up-end them and allow gravity to do the job, as you showed me at the Zoo. Mature sows and boars take more thought. Petulia uses a variation on the idea of pig-boring to render them soporific, less prone to struggle, and easier to manage. Pig-boring is an interesting skill. I discovered I could do it to an extent by reading them the stock exchange listings from the Times in the most monotone voice I can manage. I also discovered that the Howondalandian newspapers you sent me – the one with family news from Piemberg – do the same. News of births, marriages, deaths and court appearances from Piemberg, read in Vondalaans in the most monotone voice I can manage **(4),** works to stun pigs into a state of listless catatonia in which it is easy to dose them. Petulia begged me to stop as she reminded me they are to be allowed to return to full life – we are not in this case humanely killing them. But she believes I have an aptitude for the Pig Trick. Whatever that is. No doubt I will learn it in due course. Lancre pigs do not understand foreign languages, apparently, and their attention soon wanders. Petulia doesn't want their attention to wander so far that it loses its way and fails to return. Yet.

We are indeed slaughtering, butchering and preserving surplus pigs prior to winter. I have learnt much about this process, which is grisly but necessary. I can now roll and tie a full loin of pork ready for the oven inside three minutes and have learnt the intricacies of salting and preserving pork meat for a winter store. Fortunately the hides and skins are not tanned here and this is done elsewhere. What I saw of tanning in Ankh-Morpork convinces me that this is a disgusting process best performed by others. Petulia wishes to send you a Hogswatch gift of meat and pork produce, by the way. As thanks for your sending me here. It can be in Ankh-Morpork inside a day and we will let you know in good time so as for it to be collected.

Please send, in order of need:

More books. Lancre people are not great readers. They are not famed for this. Petulia fell on the few I brought with me, as she is clever and literate, but we have read everything available to us in a country where things made of paper tend to end up in the Privy attached to a loop of string.

Thermal underwear!

More socks, the thick woolly ones. This is Lancre, and winter is coming.

Also the following Herbs and Apothecary preparations which are in short supply here…(list attached)

How are preparations for Hogswatch going at Home? I hope to be with you for part of the season, flying conditions permitting. Also Famke is worried you will forget about her and leave her in School. I am sure you won't, however tempted you are! And perhaps the incident with Cassandra Venturi on the edificeering wall really was a genuine accident? Famke says she was nowhere near her. I believe her: my sister may have a lethal streak but she is not stupid, and knew she would be blamed regardless. She would not do anything so obvious and blatant and any disagreement with Cassandra would be pursued outside the line of sight of so many witnesses. I hope it can be sorted out.

Dad; please tell me about "love of iron"? In wizard-speak, if you have to. I have been to the Dancers, the standing-stones, and the more I know, the better. I also thank Godsmother Alice for her gift to me. I now know what she intended it for – although I have only used them to threaten, and to warn People who may well have seen them before. They appeared to understand, and did not force a confrontation, choosing to reveal a little of themselves to me which served to explain why they are to be resisted. _Die vjand nou jaag oor ons veldte,_ as they say. Godsmother Alice will know. If arrowheads are available in the same Metal, they may well be useful.

All my love to you both and to Ruth. I am glad you are offering Shauna little bits of work for you. Ruth appears to really love her, my silly sweary big-hearted Hergenian friend, who I really really miss. I hope Ruthie is not picking up too many strange new words from her babysitter. I love it that Ruthie is coming out of herself more under Shauna's big-sister-substitute encouragement.

Bekki

* * *

To/:-

Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, Witch

Highmost Pigmaney

Pork Scratching

The Kingdom of Lancre

Well, Devyuschka!

You will soon know Winter. Not to the standards of Winter in my native country, as there Winter comes early and lingers longer. But Lancre, as I recall, comes a very close second. And we have steppe. Lancre has mountains. You are now experiencing what we call the Rasputitsa, winter's whore of a sister, who softens the ground and heralds the snow with much rain and consequent mud. Olga and I will happily accept that the Rasputitsa in Lancre is every bit as glutinous and as muddy as anything we knew in Far Überwald, an unwelcome reminder of Home.

I hope you remember to hum the main theme of Doinov's _СНОВА ПОХОЛОДАЛО!_ as you go about your work. It may not help, but it serves as a wry comment on the season.

One thing Olga and I brought from Home to Lancre is enclosed. Not the same ones that we wore for the season(!), but new and tailored to your boot size. You will need them. You now have a pair of valenki. These are meant to be worn over your boots, which I hope will be worn with at least two pairs of socks. The valenki over-boot adds another layer of warmth and offers additional traction against snow and ice. They are not elegant, but in Far Überwald, elegance is not a survival trait in deep winter.

We have also provided you with a telogreika outfit and a modified ushanka. These too go over your normal clothing. The telogreika, as you will see, consists of heavily quilted jacket and trousers. Your mother assisted in providing your sizes so that we could have these made up. She believes that living in Ankh-Morpork has immured you to winters as they are known there, but her experience is that people of Howondalandian blood struggle in the Central Continent in the winter months. I have seen your mother, and people like Ruth N'Kweze, in winter. I agree. And those were only Ankh-Morporkian winters. You will look like a small troll in an overcoat, but at least you will be warm. Your mother is keen that you wrap up warm. And thank the small creatures who died so that their fur might go into keeping your head and ears warm. And WEAR GLOVES! You will miss your fingers if you lose any.

Also – are there bath-houses where you may go for a very hot cleansing bath? Important, devyushka. Hot baths and steam are not only cleansing, they are good for morale. Birch twigs and an understanding friend to apply them are a help, but I know you are strange people who shudder at the idea.

Olga and her children thrive. Vassily and Valentina are developing into fine healthy babies. I will try to get iconographs. To think I wished a multiple birth on her in a moment of exasperation! Annaliese is a very good nanny to them, and she is learning our language well. She is also clocking up many flying miles on the Pegasus Service and adapting well to commuting between two continents with a home in each. She misses you too and wishes you well in your new life.

We are hearing good reports concerning you and are very pleased. Good reports reflect well on us. They are pleasing.

Nottie sends her love and she may soon be taking leave to return to her home. She is looking forward to visiting you. You were her pupil too. She wants to see how you are getting on. Have you been to Lancre Castle yet? Magrat likes to meet new Witches in Lancre as and when she can. She may invite you to dinner at the Castle and to stay over as a guest. She is alright and a good friend. I think you will like her, but when you meet Verence – _**never mention custard.**_ Important. He twitches, poor man. It is painful to watch. Like that chef who has a fit when the word _Garlic_ is spoken. Unfortunate, as he was asked to cater for the King and Queen of Lancre on their State Visit. Given Magrat's family name, I assume this was Vetinari's idea of a joke.

Nottie asks you not to hit either of her brothers too hard. While both have a touch of Parsifal Venturi about them, they are, I think, saveable. And punching a Prince might not be seemly behaviour, even in Lancre.

I expect no payment for the gift of valenki, telegroika and ushanka. And the large warm Cossack cloak which you will find a friend and a comfort when several hundred feet up, navigating blind in a snowstorm. However, Petulia Gristle bakes extremely nice pork pies. The one with Lancre Blue Cheese and cranberries is especially palatable and I could happily eat more than one at a sitting. Olga likes the ones with a hint of strong port wine.

 _Надеюсь на скорый ответ. Ответь как можно скорее. Я вас люблю!_

Irena.

* * *

To/:-

Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, Witch

Highmost Pigmaney

Pork Scratching

The Kingdom of Lancre

To my dear Godsdaughter.

The case contains twenty _special_ crossbow bolts. A recent contract completion provided me with adequate finance to invest in new equipment and the Guild is also experimenting.

I will spare you the details as many things are Guild-sensitive and privileged information, but there is a growing trend among paranoid people to use the "stone-that-loves-metal" and related things as a sort of detection system, which activates if people entering the building where the client is are carrying concealed weapons. Several Assassins were caught out this way until we realised, and started evolving counter-measures.

Fortunately, such weapon-detection systems only work if the concealed weapon has an iron content. And quite often, they are only as good as the guard tending them, who tend not to be the best human material (recruited cheaply, and as we know, you get what you pay for) and who can become bored and disinterested by a monotonous job. Which makes them easy to deal with.

The Guild is developing weapons with no iron or steel content whatsoever. I also enclose several basic knives which are based on new ceramic compounds with no metal content whatsoever. (And to think we used to consider trolls beneath us, uninteresting, and not worth speaking to. They have interesting technology too!) Strange we are reverting to stone blades – although these are a lot more advanced than chipped flints! Tell me how you get on with these; I believe they can be used for conventional and routine kitchen tasks too and may be of use to you in animal work.

The sealed envelope has copies of the iconographs I took of the Elves I encountered. Show these to your fellow trainees so they know the **true** look of the things they may be called upon to fight. I believe this will be helpful.

Enclosed is a Guild document which is for your eyes only: please read it and incorporate anything of interest or use in informal teaching you may share with your peers. It sums up what the Guild knows of Elves and the strategies we have evolved for dealing with them, where encountered. You may find this informative. And it is in everybody's best interests if the elves are checked and destroyed wherever they try to intrude, whoever does the fighting. When you are done, please return it to me in the prepaid return envelope: it is checked out from the Dark Library in my name, but will need to be returned there.

Your sister is doing very well at school, as is only to be expected. We are generally very pleased with her progress as she is a fast, able, student: but certain issues have had to be addressed. In plain Morporkian, she requires reining in. Frequently. I am seriously considering sending her on the Vimes Run to rub this in. If I do this, she will set a School record for becoming the youngest-ever student to be sent for correction at the hands of Sam Vimes! Usually this is only done around the age of fourteen or fifteen, or older. The youngest student I ever despatched – and she had exceptional promise – was thirteen. Sending an eleven-year-old is unprecedented. But it may become necessary. Famke, known simply as Kay to her friends, also has the nickname "Tykebomb". Members of staff consider she is a Walking Device on an uncertain fuse, who requires careful handling by people with bomb disposal experience!

I consider she is already showing the seeds of exceptional promise. Such students require bespoke handling. Your mother agrees.

I hope to see you all at Hogswatch – you will be coming Home for the season? – and I do admit I miss you. It's warming to hear of how well you are doing. Well done. So very well done.

With fond love and affection – and I do not say that very often!

Your Godsmother

Alice Band.

 _ **To be continued.**_

* * *

 **(1)** Shawn Ogg and a couple of part-time Castle guardsmen

 **(2)** And no, it wasn't Tuttle Scrope, who did a certain _other_ sort of specialised footwear for discerning clients. Mum got her boots from a cobblers' shop who had a discreet "By Appointment to The Guild of Assassins" mark of approval. And you _didn't_ want to stick a knife with a razor edge down your boot-top, hoping you _weren't_ going to ladder your tights, rip your sock, or stick it straight into your leg. Student Assassins had come to grief on this, with the practicalities of the knives-down-the-boot-top thing.

 **(3)** French-Canadian swearing is exotic and interesting. Believe me.

 **(3)** _**die Liewe Heksie**_ , the TV show, again. Lavinia the Little Witch has a very monotone speaking voice. She'd be _good_ at pig-boring.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Had to check out Russian winter clothing suitable for the harshest winter. The clothing items and designations are Red Army - I'm assuming they applied to civvies too. Bekki's "Russian" fur cap will have the standard fold-down flaps to keep her ears warm, but will also incorporate a pointy hat so that people _know._ **


	19. sneeu en wilde varke

_**Strandpiel 19:**_ _ **sneeu en wilde varke**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort, now easing, are a bugger, but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales in the ongoing saga. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to. Tidied, with minor corrections (the French insults from**_ **Python and the Holy Grail** ** _were corrected. If I'm going to plagiarise, do it correctly) and typos, where detected, were remedied. Some minor expansion in places and section breaks added where missed. Also - I keep typing "Petulia" as Petunia", for some reason. Got to correct this! _  
**

"Well, that was quite smashing!" said Sophie Rawlinson, as she and Bekki rubbed down their horses after a ride. Sophie was an apprentice witch of fourteen, a year or so younger than Bekki, who was the sort of big-boned hearty girl whose life destiny had been mapped out seemingly from birth. Anyone who looked like that, Bekki considered, and who acted like that, had no choice. Sophie was meant to work with horses. She looked like she'd been born in the saddle. Apparently some horsey tribes in the heart of the Central Continent believed their children should _literally_ be born on horseback. It was traditional and expected. Bekki wondered about midwives in those tribes and how they met the professional challenges involved.

And Sophie was _hearty_. The Anthropomorphic Personification of War would send her shy little love letters. Or a job offer to join the Valkyries, name your salary. Sophie was taller and broader than Bekki, by quite a long way, but none of it appeared to be fat. She looked as if she could wrestle a stallion and win. She had a booming personality. Her family weren't _nobility_ in any way. But she carried herself as if she were. Being a horsey type in Sophie's particular way lent you a patrician edge. If she'd been born male, Bekki suspected, she'd play fifteen-a-side and be able to outdrink the rest of the team in the clubhouse afterwards. Her brothers apparently _did_.

And like Bekki, she'd been taken out of school, practically, to begin Witch training in Lancre. Miss Tick had discovered her at the Quirm Academy For Young Ladies. Again the argument had been that a witch in the classroom, with still-forming and unguided magical talent, could be disruptive to the life of a school as well as a hazard to teachers she didn't get on with. Girls' schools around the Disc tended to accept this was a big consideration. Sophie herself had rushed to pack her bags and clamoured to go to Lancre, on being assured by Miss Tick that practically unlimited access to horses beckoned.

Sophie Rawlinson was therefore training to be a Horse Witch, one who serviced the equestrian community's specific needs. She was in a Steading that covered the main horse studs and stables, in the nearest thing Lancre had to flat open space where things equine might be bred and trained. She dealt with things ranging in size from Lancre ponies right up to percherons: horses originally bred to be bedecked in curtains and ridden by knights in armour. Now known as Lancre Punch horses, they had been repurposed to draw ploughs, pull heavy duty dray carts, and to look impressively decorative when bedecked in ornamental brasses.

Sophie also spent time in Jason Ogg's forge, learning what she could of smithing. Jason had been impressed by her willingness to help out, port and lift things, and to construct blank horseshoes to be used as needed.

"Useful build on her, that girl." Jason had said. "I tell you, our mum, she's fitter than a lot of the male prentices I've seen!"

Nanny Ogg had smiled benignly.

"There's a witch for everything, our Jason. We're recruiting some good ones. With skills. Makes sense there'll be one with an interest in smithing. And young Sophie wants to know _everything_ about horses. Good attitude. She's even spent time in the tanners and the saddlery, to _really_ get to know leather and everything you have to do to make the tack. She'll do well."

Today, she'd been our riding with Bekki.

"Got a couple of good fillies who need the exercise." Sophie had said. "Want to grab a saddle and some tack?"

Bekki had been riding since she was five. Mum and her side of the family had insisted. Mum had apparently hoped it might divert her away from magic if she got _something else_ to occupy her spare energy. Bekki had liked it. A lot. But it hadn't killed the magic. Holidays in Howondaland, on the family plaas, had offered opportunities for long treks into the bush and the Veldt. Her grandparents had approved. Oupa Barbarossa, in his booming way, had loomed large, taking her and young cousins out into the veldt and showing them how it was done and why the land was The Gods' Own Country. Mum and Auntie Mariella had joined in, showing them the land where they'd been born and brought up, where they'd learned to ride and trek. Bekki had learnt about setting camp, how to navigate, overnight stays in the wild, and the vital necessity of tending to the horse you rode and being attentive to its needs.

Bekki could therefore ride in a way Sophie, even Sophie, approved of. Her world was simple and uncomplicated and divided into People Who Ride and People Who Don't. You took pity on the latter group, and spent as much time as you could with the former.

"Oh, gosh. That sounds like _Heaven_." Sophie had said, when Bekki described the Howondalandian Veldt. "I want to go there. Wide open spaces where you can ride for days and there's still more open space to ride in. You're so _lucky_!"

They'd spent an afternoon on horseback, a rare break from the demands made on the young Witch. Sophie had proudly showed off the Steading she was a part of and demonstrated a knowledge of every stud, stable and horse-owner within miles. Horses first, _then_ the humans around them.

In the morning, Bekki had demonstrated The System on Hobley's stud farm. Sophie had been attentively watching and learning.

"The Smith-Rhodes Device For The Selective Breeding of Livestock." Old Hobley had said, taking thoughtful drags on his pipe. "Your mother devised it, you say, miss?"

Bekki grinned. It had taken a while for artificial insemination to get to Lancre. Hobley was one of the first, seeing commercial opportunities.

"At the City Zoo in Ankh-Morpork, Mr Hobley." Bekki had said. "Mum is Director there. She was thinking about animals that are slow breeders and hard to keep going in captivity. Also, she wanted to be sure only the very best get to breed. To ensure the lines. If you can only keep a few representative animals in a Zoo, you want only the very best. You've probably seen it yourself. The ideal mare and the ideal stallion, you want a foal from them, but for whatever reason the stallion and the mare really don't get on, and in natural circumstances they'd fight rather than mate."

Hobley had laughed.

"People is like that, miss. Picky in who they chooses. So this system gets around that?"

"Mum explained it as being like those farmers who run orchards, who go around collecting pollen on feathers and paintbrushes, and then making sure it goes to the _right_ flowers. Who might be at the other end of the orchard or in a different orchard altogether. They're keen to make sure the right trees fertilise each other. Mum did some thinking, and wondered how you could apply this to animals. And she came up with this. And when she saw how it worked for zoo animals, she reasoned it would transfer to farm animals. She taught me about it when I was working with her at the Zoo. I got to do zebras, for instance. They're interesting."

The Smith-Rhodes Device was now making Mum, in a quiet and sure way, very rich indeed. She'd taken care to get the copyrights and patents. Mr Thunderbolt, the lawyer, advised her on this.

"So." Sophie had said, thoughtfully. "You trick the stallion into thinking he's covering the mare he wants. Who _isn't_ the mare you want him to get gravid. And you, er, divert the flow, so to speak. Then having got the juice, you insert it into the mare you _really_ want a foal from. Or you divide it up between _several_ mares. Sneaky. I like that. Show me how it's done?"

Hobley shook his head. He was definitely intrigued.

"Hear that's the sort of thing people go to the Seamstresses' Guild for and pay good money to see." he remarked. " _Some_ people, anyway. Well, I can definitely see applications."

He brightened up.

"Bet it'd work on the special horses." he remarked. "The ones Ankh-Morpork pays _really_ good dollars for."

Bekki had then been invited to see the _special_ horses. Unusually for Lancre, these were kept under guard and in conditions of higher security. The Ankh-Morpork City Watch kept a presence here, representing the City. Watchmen of a particular type were rotated here, on detachment. Men and women with a horsey interest, and who had different sort of Guarding skills. There was an Air Police station here, for one very obvious and pressing reason.

"Have any of them ever tried to fly away?" Bekki asked.

"Not these horses, miss." Hobley said. Breeding Pegasii had made him very prosperous. For the money, he happily accepted Ankh-Morporkian security and a Watch presence on his stud, as well as some exacting terms and conditions.

"The foals stay right close to their dams. At first. And they tends to choose their Witches. Then they stay with their Witch. Bond for life, once the bond's made."

"I'm hoping for one." Sophie said. "I know it means I'm going to have to fly with the Air Police for part of the week. But I really, really, really, want a Pegasus!"

Bekki saw the look in Sophie's eyes, that said "even if I have to kill somebody and scramble over a heap of bloody mangled corpses…"

"They don't come too often." Hobley said. "Most of the time you just gets a normal-seeming foal without wings. But it's not impossible that one of the yennork foals grows to be a mare and then has a Pegasus, because the Pegasus stuff is there. Just hidden. Seen it happen once. Young Sophie here does the stock books. Helps keep the bloodlines straight. So as to keep track."

" _Yennork_ " said Sophie. "Interesting word. Used to just mean somebody born to a were family who isn't a were. Locked into one state. Now we use it for a normal horse without wings, with a bit of Pegasus."

"So this here _artificial insemination_ might help. Speed the process. _You_ select which horses breed. They don't." Hobley remarked. "Tell me what your mum charges for the tools, miss. it's worth investing in."

"Breed true lines." Sophie said.

"Mum calls it a _recessive gene_." Bekki said. "The sort of thing horses breed out if you leave them alone. She thinks that's probably why the Pegasii died out of the world, and only came back through magic. Normal horse-stuff without any wings overwhelmed it. She said she got to thinking about that because normally, red-haired people aren't that common. Having red hair is a naturally recessive-gene thing. Other hair colours beat it out. But our family tends to select for red hair. Not consciously, but that's how it works out. Because we've concentrated the red-hair gene until it's the dominant one in our family line. I've got a couple of cousins who are blonde and my baby sister is dark, like her father. Me and our middle sister are red. So being a Smith-Rhodes means you're going to be a redhead. Mum worked out that if you concentrate recessive genes together, they get to be dominant."

"And we can do that here, with the Pegasus stuff." Hobley said. "Not that we ain't doing that anyway, but this way we can select better, From the likeliest candidates in the bloodlines."

He grinned a grin that had dollar signs in it. Ankh-Morpork paid a premium for Pegasii.

* * *

 _To/:-_

Mrs Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons

And Professor Ponder Stibbons

18 Spa Lane

Nap Hill

Ankh-Morpork

AM3 1DL

Liewe Ouers / Dear Mum and Dad.

Well, mum, I did the presentation and demonstration of the Equipment at Hobley's, as you asked me. Not too difficult, as I saw you do it at the Zoo and even got to try it out myself once. Not prying, but is the person Aunt Mariella refers to as our kindly old Uncle Havelock taking a keen interest? Anything that speeds up Pegasus breeding and gets more pilots into the air would be of interest to him, I should imagine. At least I am now Known at the Air Station at Hobley's, and it is accepted I have a pass to get in and out of the "secure area" where the flying horses are. I haven't seen Olga or Irena here yet (Pork Scratching is remotely located compared to this more central part of Lancre), but they apparently visit here regularly.

There is a sort of informal "waiting list" for Witches who are keen to get a Pegasus of their own. Even then, it is uncertain, as I am told the new foal will choose its witch, just as the witch seeks to choose her mount. I'd like one, who wouldn't, but to be realistic, I can't see this happening any time soon.

Is it true the Guild sometimes sends people out on practical field exercises here, to test the security at the Air Station and around the Pegasii, to look for weak points and to check how alert the guards are? It must be the case that other governments and nations in the Disc are envious of something only Ankh-Morpork and Lancre possess, and some would steal the horses, if they could. I suspect Sam Vimes tests his people too and has ways of checking they are not slacking, or "going native", as people from Ankh-Morpork put it. The Watchmen on guard here are rotated back to the City every couple of months, to guard against the possibility that Lancre ways of thinking will take them over.

Apart from which, one Watchman I knew slightly from my time training with the Watch witches (he asked me if I could do his feet, please, miss) frankly said he couldn't wait for his posting here to be over as this ain't the City, miss, and getting sent out here gives me cabin fever. It ain't right, all this green. I assured him too much green would not be a problem in a month or so and hoped he had good boots and socks.

Oh, and I now have pets. I was not looking for them. They sort of _arrived_.

* * *

"I see." Petulia Gristle said, looking at the now well-fed cat who was contentedly stretched out by the fire. The cat, as Petulia pointed out, was a typical Lancre Greebo. A yearling kitten who had been learning to live on his wits, and who had enough wit to recognise a soft-hearted human prepared to feed him and provide a dry warm place.

"He followed me home." Bekki said. "I couldn't throw him out."

"Well, every farm gets cats. It's only a matter of time. And I daresay somebody to deal with mice and things is useful to have around the place."

She nodded at the animal.

"Don't get too cosy." she said. " _Lots_ of mice about the place. You earn your keep."

The cat regarded her with a half-open eye, the looked away lazily. Petulia stroked him anyway.

"Got a name for him?" Petulia asked.

Bekki considered this.

"I've got a cousin in Howondaland who's a bit of a laid-back lazy slob." she said. "Reminds me of my cousin Mattewis. Uncle Kurt has to kick him to get him moving in the mornings."

"Mattewis it is, then. Or Matti."

And then the local men assembled to go out for a morning, with very long spears. A neighbour brought dogs. Mattewis the cat made himself scarce.

"Oh." Bekki said. Men going out hunting. With spears and crossbows. And hip-flasks full of distilled liquid. "Shall I roll some bandages and check we're stocked up on catgut and surgical spirit?"

"Leave them to it." Petulia said, with wifely tolerance. "Gouther. Don't forget the trousers."

"Good point, love." her husband said. He disappeared for a few minutes then came back wearing what at first sight was a ridiculously baggy, almost Clown-like, set of pantaloons which were white with broad vertical blue stripes. Bekki tried not to laugh. The other Pork Scratching men were treating this pretty much seriously.

"Learnt about this in Quirm." Petulia said, apropos of nothing. "Let me explain…"

Apparently a farmer in a neighbouring hamlet had a brainwave one day. He'd seen, in a top-end butcher's shop in Ankh-Morpork, what wild boar meat sold for. Eight times the cost of an equivalent weight of normal farmed pork. Dollar signs had lit up in his eyes. Petulia, sensing trouble, had tried to talk him out of it. But a farmer sensing big dollar is not a man to be dissuaded. He had invested in eight wild boars, a boar and seven sows.

At first it had all gone well. Petulia had reluctantly advised on the health of the new piglets and stressed how important it was that the paddock they roamed in be secure. Doubly, triply, secure. And that wild boars are not the same thing as domestic pigs. The farmer had told her not to fuss, he'd get on with it.

And those sweet comical little piglets had grown into a herd of hard-eyed, tusked, bristled and snorting horrors. Petulia had discovered pig-boring did not work as well on them as on their domesticated cousins. Not at all.

"Did you try Quirmian on them?" Bekki asked. "They might not have got it if you were Boring them in Morporkian."

"I can hardly speak it." replied Petulia. "I never really got past that odd thing about my aunt having feathers. Or my mother being a hamster and my father smelling of elderberries. Which he didn't, much. Umm."

The farmer had gone to the _difficult_ paddock one morning to discover the loose bit of fence, the one he'd been meaning to replace when he could spare five minutes, had been battered down. The wild boars had escaped and taken to the forest. Well, all except two of the females. Who'd got into the next field and were terrorising the sows and pigs in there. They'd also practically gang-raped a traumatised prize boar, who had, up until then, won prizes at the Royal Lancre Agricultural Show.

"He was never the same boar after that." Petulia said, reflectively. "Had to humanely Bore him in the end. Pity, that."

The upshot of this was that while old Josh Delamere kept two wild boar sows, they were littered with some interesting hybrid pigs, neither wild boar nor farm pig. The streak ran in his herd since that day. Mr Delamere now had to go into his pens wearing chain-mail with a boar-spear to threaten them. And Lancre now had a population of Quirmian wild boar in the forest, _le sanglier sauvage de Quirm_.

"It adds to the rich local colour and tapestry of life." Petulia said. "They normally aren't much of a problem. But if their numbers explode and they get to be a threat, you know, destroying crops and things, the call goes out for a boar-hunt. I had to go to Quirm and talk to people there about how they manage them. The answer was very long spears and whatever armour you can scrounge up. And it's traditional in Quirm to wear those trousers when hunting boar. It's folklore, and nobody quite knows why. But there's a long-ago legend of a great hunter of boar who wore those trousers. The boar know it _too_. Like the red cloak to a bull thing in Toleda, only the boar are hard-wired to panic and run if they see blue and white striped trousers coming at them. It means Gouther stays safe when he's boar-hunting."

"I see." said Bekki.

Later in the morning they each donned blue-and-white striped protective pantaloons for safety, and went out to follow the Hunt. Just in case a witch was needed. Petulia took a long heavy boar-spear with her. Bekki put on her mail-shirt and checked her crossbow was loaded.

They located the huntsmen by the sound of happy men sharing hip-flasks. It wasn't a hard trail to follow. The reason for the happiness was three huge wild boar carcasses gently steaming on the ground and much debate concerning how to butcher them and who got what.

Bekki studied them. Far larger, leaner, and definitely much meaner than the usual pig. Two sows, a third already ripped by the dogs, sex indeterminate. One of the sows, she discovered from a gentle examination, seemed swollen with milk. She tried to put the implications of this out of her mind. Nothing to be done.

And incredibly, nobody had been hurt. Dogs, crossbows, and spears had forced a confrontation the boars could not win, and the menfolk of Lancre were rejoicing as huntsmen have since time immemorial. This necessarily involved carousing. And, as this was Lancre, a degree of bickering.

Josh Delamere **(1)** was complaining that as they were descended from stock he'd imported from Quirm, the meat and hides and ivory were _definitely_ his.

"But you let the buggers escape, Josh. Went feral. Stopped being yourn when they ran for it. 'Sides, these ain't your originals. Them's forest-born descendents. Free game. So they're _everybody's."_ Bert Weaver pointed out. His point of view was supported.

"I think you'll find they belong to King Verence." Petulia pointed out. She waited till she had everybody's attention. This was the local Witch, voicing an opinion. "Royal forest. His game. Long-established statute."

There was a pause.

"Well, yeah. Technically speakin'. But Verence ain't here, is he?"

There was another pause. The men of Lancre considered the enticing prospect of a few roast boar dinners what they'd won by their own labours. And that they were also more-or less loyal subjects of a King they actually quite liked, when all was said and done. Never burnt any farmhouses and din't tax too heavily. Also that nobody wanted to argue with a witch. _Two_ witches, in fact. That slightly strange one from forn parts with odd forn ways about her, who toted a crossbow, as well as Mistress Petulia.

Bekki let them get on with debating. Her attention was drawn by a flash of white in the treeline. She followed it. It was an animal, yes. A snow hare?

Then her eyes adjusted and she saw a majestic white cat. It sat and looked at her with very intelligent eyes. It seemed slightly impatient. She focused.

"You want me to follow you?" she asked. The cat got up and walked away for a few paces. Then it turned and looked back at her. It did seem to want her to follow. Bekki followed. She wondered where such a well-tended cat lived and who it belonged to. Nothing could be feral and be that cleanly white.

The white cat stopped, definitively, on a bank sheltered by large trees. She looked at Bekki with an expression that read something like "You know what to do."

Bekki stopped and heard faint mewling, high-pitched animal noise. She followed it. A familiar smell rose to meet her. And then she found a nest in among the dead leaves and roots. She heard creatures scrambling in alarm, and then saw them, huddled together for mutual reassurance. They looked sweet and comical. Three little piglets, but with fur, long attractive banded stripes running laterally down their bodies. And very tiny. A few days old. Now she knew the significance of the dead sow with swollen teats.

"You're orphans, I think." she said. She tried to recall what she knew of pigs in the wild. They lived in _sounders_ , small informal family groups. No boars, after the mating season was over. They ranged independently. More than one female would support each other. If one died, other sows would foster the piglets. _But there was a second dead sow there… I didn't get to check the third. Does this mean the whole sounder's gone?_

Bekki was entranced by the piglets. They were _cute._ And vulnerable. And needed somebody.

"Thank you…" she said, to the white cat. Who had vanished. Then she decided.

"I'd better take you in."

Bekki took off her tunic, resigned herself to the fact it was probably going to get soiled, and made a makeshift carrier for the three piglets. She wondered if there were other litters out here somewhere. Then reflected the white cat would still be here to guide her to them if there were. She didn't know why she was so sure. but there was more to the white cat than there seemed. It had _solidity_. Odd. If she remembered, she'd ask Petulia. And besides, only one of the dead sows had been in milk. This was probably the only litter. Wild pigs probably only came into season if the conditions were right and the environment rich enough to allow them to rear young. if the mothers struggled to feed themselves, then wild animals tended not to have too many young. Mum had said Nature was clever that way and self-regulated. She reached down into the nest to collect the piglets...

* * *

"Okay." Petulia Gristle said. She watched the banded piglets feeding from a mother sow Bekki had found for them. She had only two piglets of her own and had spare teats. The two witches watched together, silently. Bekki sensed Petulia had also been captivated by the cute.

"Just till they're weaned. To give them a fair chance. Then we'll see. We can, I don't know, release them back into the wild or something."

"What's happening with the boars from the hunt?" Bekki asked.

"They decided to send one, or most of one, to the Castle to Magrat and Verence. Tribute to the King and Queen. They're carting them back here, for now. Sent some lads out with hand-carts. I said they can be butchered here, _properly_ , in a _clean_ shed. Hides go for tanning. The meat gets shared out fairly. _We'll_ decide."

Bekki understood. Witches decided, when there was a dispute. People didn't have to _like_ the decision. But they didn't argue. This was Lancre. Witches arbitrated. Witches decided. People accepted the decision.

And it was beginning to look as if Bekki now had some more pets.

* * *

Shame there weren't four, Mum. I could have named them after the Hogfather's boars. You don't want any for the Zoo, do you? I can get them over to you before they grow too big. Petulia's right – wild forest boar aren't a good idea to keep on a farm. But the crazy idea is there, that I can somehow train them. Tell me what you think?

Stuck on names. One's a cheeky little boar. Full of personality. He's a Karel. I don't know why. But Karel seems to fit. Oh, and I found my cat – _our_ cat – Mattewis, taking advantage. He sneaks in when a sow's nursing, and gets a feed of milk. When her attention's occupied. What can pig milk do to a cat? The sow doesn't seem to mind much!

Hoping to be back at Hogswatch. As I write the first winter snow is falling. Petulia said that's it now, until around March. Winter is coming. Apparently not _too_ many nasty things come in with the Snow, nothing supernatural, much, but you _do_ have watch for wolves. They can get a bit dire, by all accounts.

Lots of love, that's about it for the latest Letter From Lancre, see you all soon, love to Ruthie and what looks like her new nanny Shauna.

Distant daughter

Bekki

 _ **To be continued….**_

* * *

 _ **(1)**_ A note about naming conventions - in keeping with the tribute to Alan Garner's rural Cheshire, out in the top-right-hand-corner where the Cheshire Plain starts becoming the Pennine Mountains **(1.1)** , where Lancre characters appearing as OC's need surnames, I'm using Cheshire towns and villages. Garner's books, I suspect, were an influence on Pratchett's Lancre. Garner recognised this: in his dense and perplexing _**Boneland**_ , the sequel to _ **Weirdstone of Brisingamen**_ and _ **Moon of Gomrath,**_ he inserts tribute to Terry Pratchett as a reciprocal thing. (the noise of prehistoric flint-knapping is rendered "Tak, tak, tak, tak, Tak" and he makes mention of a legend of life arising from a primal stone egg). Therefore **Delamere,** a pleasant stop on the railway line between Stockport and Chester. I've used **Mobberley** elsewhere as an OC name, and there are lots of other quaint Cheshire placenames to mine: Halebarns, Redesmere, Woodsmoor, Nantwich, Mickle Trafford, Helsby, Cuddington, Holmes Chapel, Plumsley... _**  
**_

**(1.1)** OK. more like high steep hills, and not mountains proper as other countries know them. People from places with proper mountains are polite about this. They do not draw attention to the fact not much in the Pennines gets more than 3,000 feet above sea level, for instance. But it's worth mentioning that when the Tour de France got vectored through Northern England for one of its not-in-France-but-in-a-neighbouring-country stages, professional cyclists used to the Alps found British hills to be real bastards, with knackering long climbs that went on forever. You can feel proud of this.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **In my ongoing attempt to make sense of the weird and wonderful world of Japanese graphic fiction, which on the surface is so bizarre, alien and generally odd as to give a succession of WTF? Moments, I discovered the biggest WTF moment of all –** _ **futunari**_ **. I will not make subjective value judgements on this. I'm sure there are things we do that are every bit as weird to Japanese people but which make perfect sense to us. Animé and manga. Takes a different sort of head-space to accommodate it. Especially futunari.**

 **The idea of people who on the surface of it are glamorous, exquisitely attractive, desirable women. But who somehow manage to conceal a very big surprise inside their panties. You blink and think – how does this work? Surely somebody would notice when a drop-dead gorgeous woman goes into the gents and has to stand up to pee? All the "whoa, wait a** _ **minute**_ **here" objections start queing up for consideration. Then you think… this is the Japanese animé/manga/hentai world. Where nobody ever seems to look ethnically Japanese, there are hundred-foot lizards, enormous mecha, bizarrely empowered superheroes, twelve-inch tall android girlfriends in maids' uniforms, and very strange schools exist that, for instance, teach petite and pretty girls how to fight in tanks - and nobody thinks this is strange. (** _ **Girls Und Panzer.**_ **Hmm. Assassins' School?) So why raise objections to chicks with dicks…**

 **Did some digging around and discovered this is a theme in Japanese mythology and folklore which has just been given a modern slant. Things like the sexually ambivalent** _ **dōsojin**_ **which are a sort of nature spirit. And the Buddhist idea of a third gender, both sexually ambivalent and neutral. And the lovely, lovely, idea that there are a sort of werepeople. Who are normally male or female for three weeks of the month – but, when the full moon shines, have the were-power to switch sex and become the opposite human gender. What a were-ability to have, in a world where most people are yennork, locked irreversibly into male or female. I could use this with an Agatean character in fic… the innocent Ankh-Morporkian who has a lovely Agatean girlfriend, but who he only ever sees for one week in four… then he gets curious and finds out. I feel less "uggh" about the futunari concept now!**

 _ **(**_ _ **半月**_ _ **hangetsu**_ _ **) – Half-Moon people, the were-gender-shifters.**_


	20. Winterwinde

_**Strandpiel 20: Winterwinde (winter winds)  
**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort, now easing, are a bugger, but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales in the ongoing saga. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to.**_

 _ **Edit: damn. The usual crop of missed typos and that FF thing where whole chunks of text are randomly snipped out. Revising and checking.  
**_

 _The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork._

Lord Vetinari accepted the mug of tea with a nod of thanks. He returned to reading the foreign affairs briefings that the relevant Secretariat had prepared for him. Occasionally he cross-referenced what he was reading to a report from his Ambassador which had arrived that morning via Pegasus, along with a selection of the local newspapers from that country.

Rufus Drumknott stood back and observed the slightly amused look his boss was allowing to show on his face. It was clear the Patrician found the situation both informative and entertaining.

Vetinari looked up.

"I do appreciate the concept of _democracy_ , Drumknott." he remarked. "So very instructive to observe from a distance. And it provides ample entertainment on a grey overcast winter morning."

"The forthcoming General Election in Rimwards Howondaland, sir?" Rufus Drumknott asked, politely.

"Indeed, Drumknott. I am observing closely. As it involves a possible change of government in a nation which is our closest regional ally, it is best to be prepared and to evaluate the possible nature of a new governing party, together with the strengths and weaknesses of the men who will comprise it."

Vetinari smiled gnomically.

"And I do so enjoy watching other nations attempt to make the democratic ideal work. It is always, inevitably, flawed and imperfect."

"And _this_ nation…" Drumknott said, thoughtfully.

"Indeed, Drumknott. _This_ nation. With contending players and political parties. On the one hand, the National Party and a cluster of fellow travellers. Which is the political grouping representing that approximate half of the white-skinned population who speak Vondalaans and descend, in the main, from Sto Kerrig. On the _other_ hand, the Democratic Union Party. Who represent the other approximate half of the white population who speak Morporkian and descend, in the main, from Ankh-Morpork. Who have lived in a spirit of mutually held mistrust and misunderstanding of each other's cultural values since the, ah, _Boor War_. Neither can command a majority on its own in the _Volksraad_ , the House of Assembly."

"And the fact the legislature has two names, in two different languages, says much about the country." Drumknott remarked. Vetinari smiled again.

"I suspect the only thing holding the Union together is a shared understanding that the alternative, for White Howondaland, is even more unspeakable then having to share power with the other white ethnicity." Vetinari remarked. "The Zulu Empire on one side and the Matabele kingdoms on the other. At least both white parties look at the other and can say – at least you are also white."

"And of course democracy there is conditional." Drumknott said. "The vote is conditional on your being a property owner, white and male."

"As I once remarked to the nation's then president, it does rather simplify things if you only have to solicit the active support of one in fifteen of your people once every few years." Vetinari remarked. "Louis van Baalsteufel was also somewhat embarrassed when I said that a system which excludes capable and intelligent women from standing for office appears to impose a self-inflicted limitation."

"You did ask him to contemplate, for instance, Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes in a position of political influence, sir." Drumknott said.

Vetinari smiled a satisfied smile.

"Allow me some little pleasures, Drumknott. While I happen to suspect Doctor Smith-Rhodes is far too intelligent and has better and more fulfilling things to do than to stand for political office in a country she left over twenty years ago, it could only benefit her nation immeasurably."

"Ah. The Smith-Rhodes family. Who have indeed been _very_ active in their nation."

"Yes, Drumknott. I can't help noticing one or two family members are standing for election. As Members of the Volksraad. I suspect Mr Charles Smith-Rhodes is being active in the background, as is his wont."

 _Constantia, Caarp Province, Rimwards Howondaland._

Julian Smith-Rhodes, decorated war hero, diplomat and civil servant, put down the briefing documents his father had landed on him, grateful for a break. They were hard going. And the next month or so and a new career direction would be hard work. Chloe placed a hand on each shoulder and kissed him fondly. She smiled at him with guileless wifely devotion.

Julian sighed slightly. It wasn't a _bad_ marriage. It could have been utterly unspeakable. He also felt the throb of guilt again. It wouldn't have been so bad that their respective families had forced a marriage of convenience on them, if Chloe was also awake to the possibilities. If she'd been the sort of woman he could have made a frank agreement with, along the lines of "Look, this is an arranged marriage. We have to live with each other. We like each other and find things to appreciate in each other, so that isn't a bad deal. When we've had, say, two children, we each live our own lives and discreetly do as we like. Very quietly see other people, if that's what we want. No jealousy, no recrimination. And be a married couple in public, as is expected. Privately – two friends in a house-sharing agreement. Or something."

The problem was – Chloe was in love with him. Crazy about him. Julian felt the stab of guilt again, for not being able to feel the same way back. He was fond of her. Liked her. A nice well-brought up but somewhat sheltered girl. Too innocent. Despite the fact her brothers were unspeakable oafs, she'd turned out nice. _Too_ nice. He didn't want to hurt her. And he was scared he _would_. And she wasn't… he put the thought out of his head. That was over. Gone. It belonged in Ankh-Morpork. Different realities applied here. Very different local realities. Julian Smith-Rhodes sighed. It was worrying him that the older he got, the more like his father he was becoming.

 _Highmost Pigmanhey, Lancre_

The pre-winter work was almost done. The butchering and slaughtering was winding down. The harvest of pigs, painstakingly reared over spring and summer. Bekki knew this was, at bottom, what meat farming was all about. Death was part of the cycle. Something farmers – and witches – had to do. And you didn't want surplus stock over the winter. You planned carefully, very carefully, so that sufficient, and irreplaceable, fodder was there, in store, to sustain a nucleus. To build again with in spring, when new piglets would be weaned to start the process again.

The porcine population of the farm had therefore diminished by a good three-quarters. Those allowed life were the best, the breeders, the prime specimens. Over the winter months new piglets would start arriving in the safe warm heated sheds and barns. This would accelerate, as green returned to the world. And nine or ten months later, most of the new stock would be on its way to butchers' shelves.

And over winter, they'd be occupied with cleaning the vacant sties and piggeries, repairing, making good, tidying. Tending the prime breeding stock, sort of _seed-corn_ , who remained. The cycle of the agricultural year.

Petulia Gristle understood this. Pigs were her whole world. Her area of expertise. A woman who could still "um" and "err" a lot in company became totally self-assured and certain when around pigs and managing a pig farm.

"Right, these are yours, Bekki." she said, as another four or five pigs were driven into the shed. "Get cracking."

Bekki smiled slightly and unfolded the newspaper.

" _Haal jou ore op en luister. Dit is interessant ..."_ she said, in the most monotone and flat voice she could manage. She then started reading the pigs the current Stock Exchange reports from the Bourse in Pratoria, emphasising which listed companies were rising and which were falling, what the percentage rise and fall in share values was, and how it was based on company performance and the standard economic indicators, even reading company press releases devised to justify their mid-term performance, the sort of bland corporate things devised by committee as agreed press releases...

After a while there was the dull slapping thud of a pig losing the will to live and keeling over sideways. Petulia nodded to the waiting farmhands, who stepped forwards to manhandle the carcass onto a stretcher and hurry it away to the butchering shed. Gouther Mossock and the other men would do the necessary preliminary work, and then the rest of the pig would go to a waiting line of men and women who would hasten its component parts towards the butchers' counters.

"It's humane." Petulia had said. "And better than the other method. You know, a really sharp knife."

Bekki understood. Pig-boring was an old craft skill. Terminal anaesthesia. She was glad she hadn't needed to use her machete. Messy, and it frightened the other pigs and made them harder to handle. Pig-boring had its hazards: even the two witches weren't fully immune to it. She and Petulia could really only work on them in batches of four or five at a time, before recognising the first signs of ennui and lethargy in themselves. At this point they'd taken a break, walked out into the clean open air, and done other jobs whilst the latest batch of terminally catatonic pork was being dealt with in the butchery shed.

"Do the necessary, Bekki?" Petulia had asked, indicating the large transit crates which were packed with meat produce. These would be carted down to Hot Dang to meet the eleven o'clock train and would be in Ankh-Morpork no later than eight or nine the following morning, to go to butchers' shops and delicatessens. Ten hours or so in transit, in winter, meant the meat was still good when it arrived. A local agent handled the sales **(1),** and the farm's bank account would be quite a lot better off as a result.

Bekki nodded. She focused. It was a wizard-spell she'd learnt from her father. Even though Dad hadn't known at the time that she was watching and learning. She'd watched him. When the big metal cabinets had been installed in the kitchen. Dad had rested a hand on the metal, focused somehow, and there'd been a flash of octarine. Nothing else had apparently happened. Bekki had been dissappointed by the lack of drama. Dorothea the cook had smiled and accepted it as an eveeryday commmonplace. Dad had turned round and said to Dorothea "Give it a couple of hours for the temperature to adjust. It should last a couple of months, then I can renew the spell". Intrigued, Bekki had returned to the kitchen a few hours later and investigated.

To her surprise, the long low chest, when she lifted the lid, was showing a bloom of frost on the inside walls and the underside of the lid. Various packages and bundles placed inside were now obscured by a bloom of frost. A gust of cold icy air met her face. She had closed the lid. The inside of the tall cabinet was not as drastic. Dorothea was storing things like milk and cheese and cream in there. But it was still a lot, lot, colder inside the cabinet, than the hot summer day outside the house...

Bekki had gone out into the garden, lost in thought. It had been a baking summer day. It was still hot. She could remember the old dry syllables her father had spoken. She experimented with a couple of empty flower pots. To her surprise one became unbearably cold to the touch and then shattered. The fragments developed a fast patina of frost, which fought the summer sun for a surprisingly long time before fading. She thought for a moment or two about how to adjust, then toned it down for the second one. She could still hold this one, even though ice crystals were forming inside. After a little more experimentation, she learnt to really control the temperature. Then her father found her, and said "Bekki..." in his _"You're playing with magic again, aren't you?"_ voice. He hadn't been annoyed, just concerned. Dad was like that.

"Gydaire's Portable Cold Store." she said, to Petulia, as the first of the transit boxes for the meat became noticably cooler. "Apparently devized by a Wizard called Fred Gydaire."

"Well. Whatever they call it, it works." Petulia said. She considered a witch who'd learnt a bit of practical wizard-magic, the _useful_ kind, was an asset. Especially when it came to safely moving meat that would be in transit for at least nine hours, probably more, via the Rail Ways. Doable in early winter – hazardous in Summer. In the warmer months they would send sub-herds of live pigs by train for slaughter in Ankh-Morpork. It reduced the profit margin, but it was the only way. Until now. Bekki was teaching her this spell. Petulia frowned. Wasn't the trainee witch meant to learn from the senior and not the other way round? _But this one was a wizard's daughter... and not just any wizard..._

Ponder Stibbons devised spells that _worked_. Or else he took dangerous spells devised by other wizards, and made them into useful, practical, spells, the sort that worked reliably and safely. Not many wizards could do this, apparently. Or were inclined to do it. It was one of the reasons why Bekki's father had ascended to his current position. He thought about magic, over and above the _"Hey, let's fire this one up and see what it does. Maybe we can zap somebody!"_ level. Discovering his daughter had the same streak, he'd provided supervised training, and explained the need for caution. Bekki had learnt quite a lot of useful wizard-spells.

"Come on. Let's fill in the declaration forms." Petulia said. "Get it over with."

Goods in transit by rail or Post Office had to be clearly labelled with contents. They also needed to be clearly labelled and have the appropriate hazard sticker applied to them where they contained magic. Just in case.

Bekki applied herself to the necessary bureaucracy which, these days, applied to the practice of magic.

Hmm. _Raw meat in transit. Forty pounds of butchered and prepared pork produce..._

And _Magic used?_ Tick box for _"yes"._

 _Describe magic used in full:_

 _Name: Fred Gydaire's Portable Cold Store._

 _Description: temperature re-adjustment spell, Level Two, to lower ambient temperature by thirty degrees so as to preserve meat produce._

 _Special Instructions: will last up to three days. Inert and will not adversely react with or cross-contaminate other forms of magic. EXCEPTION: Do not store near a heat source or any item carrying a heating spell_ **. (2)**

Bekki sighed. Her father had been part of the advisory group setting up these regulations for magical items in transit. The Post Office and the Rail Ways had _insisted_. She could see the logic of it, but it just created work.

She also noted one of the large transit boxes was addressed to her parents. _Well, I hope everybody likes pork. There's a lot of it here._ Bekki took special care with this one, adding a couple of protection spells and anti-theft charms.

Then, with a spare few minutes while Petulia was brewing tea for them both, she took a few moments to read a slightly creased and battered newspaper Mum had sent on to her, which had already travelled several thousand miles from Home. It was a fairly recent copy of _die Burgher en Volksblatt_ , a Pratoria paper. Mum sent these on to her if there was interesting stuff in it, often to do with Family. And a cousin – well, a second cousin, but that's just detail – wrote for this paper. Suki's stuff was always entertaining. Lurid sometimes, but entertaining.

Bekki wondered what it was _this_ time. All she'd done, all she'd had time to do, had been to open it up to the Business pages for the stock market prices, for use in pig-boring. Petulia had agreed this had a touch of inventive genius to it. She'd simply been too busy to look at the rest.

She leafed through the pages. Hmmm. A man called Stukki van der Merwe had been arrested for indecent exposure. The punning headline – and why was she not surprised – made a lot of the rhyme perceived with the word _perverte_ **.(3).** There appeared to be no way to prevent journalists from doing things like this.

 _Leefstylkeuses,_ the Lifestyle pages. Oh, _very_ funny newspaper pun. _Braaidag_ for _Vrydag,_ Friday. The expectation that with the working week over, all you want to do is get out there and fire up the grill.

Bekki sighed. She was sitting on an upturned log in a farmyard in Lancre in early winter. Try having a braai out _here_ and see how far you get. _It'll still be fairly warm in Howondaland right now..._

Then she worked in to the political news. She read and blinked.

 _Retired Ambassador Pieter van der Graaf, who served with great distinction in the Diplomatic Service for thirty-six years and was our Nation's ambassador to Ankh-Morpork, is expected to easily take the Volksraad seat of Hartenbos for the National Unity party. As neither of the main parties is expected to gain an overall majority, whichever party wins most seats will need to form a coalition with the smaller National Unity party to form a working Government. Mr van der Graaf may well then be a candidate as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, thus returning to his former employer as the man at the very top..._

Bekki wished her great-uncle very good luck in his political career. She wondered what had made him come out of retirement. Having to live with Aunt Friejda for twenty-four and eight, perhaps? He might feel a need to get out of the house... she wondered why she was thinking this way. Her mother would be the _first_ to make a snarky remark like that.

She noted the editorial was all in favour of a man like Uncle Pieter steering and deciding foreign policy for a whole country, and strongly advocated that whoever formed the next government should appoint an experienced former Ambassador who was extremely well regarded, especially in Ankh-Morpork where he had lived and worked for so long. In the opinion of the newspaper, her great-uncle was the perfect man for the job, and should be appointed forthwith.

She smiled. Then gasped at the next item.

 _Another potential rising star in politics is the renowned war hero, decorated twice for his bravery in battle, Julian Smith-Rhodes. Son of the powerful and influential man of affairs Charles Smith-Rhodes, and having spent eleven years honing his diplomatic skills in postings to the prestigious Embassies in Ankh-Morpork and Quirm, Major Smith-Rhodes is reported to have said that a career in politics is the natural next step and he is looking forward to the challenges, if elected, of representing the Bitterfontein constituency..._

The newspaper then trumpeted a long interview with the glittering society couple Julian and Chloe Smith-Rhodes, the handsome war hero and his beautiful heiress wife, in their happy marital home in Constantia. Interview by Suki van der Graaf on pages 32-33...

 _Cousin Suki interviewing a Family member for her newspaper, who is standing for Parliament. That's nice._ Then Bekki frowned. She had a picture of her mother, standing there with That Look on her face, saying "Nice you should think that way, Bekki. That's sweet and I love my trusting, gentle, and somewhat naive daughter who tends to think everybody is nice and decent, and nobody has any ulterior motives. But why are you thinking this is all working out very nicely? Ask yourself why it's all working out nicely all round. These things don't just happen."

 _Ok, mum. What do I need to know?_ Bekki asked her inner Mum.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes, or the mental picture Bekki had of her mother, smiled in her knowing tolerant way. She spoke slowly and laid out her argument in simple logical steps.

"Cousin Julian is standing for political office. What does he need to succeed in this? Think, Bekki. He needs a majority of votes. Voters need to be swayed. Coincidentally, he is offered a very sympathetic interview indeed, conducted by a journalist who is distantly related to him, who writes well and persuasively, and who is inclined to be sympathetic. And who will convey a positive impression of Julian and his dear wife to her readers, in a paper read by many. People entitled to vote will read this newspaper. They will be more inclined to vote for him. Julian therefore becomes a Volksraad representative. Another step up the ladder. As, perhaps, Uncle Charles intends."

 _And Uncle Charles is funding his campaign? They tell me standing for political office requires backers. I never paid too much attention before._

The picture of her mother nodded and smiled.

" _Maar,_ you're still only fifteen. Why should you be interested in politics? But now you are thinking straight, Rebecka. Look for the causes of things. You're a witch. You are being trained to use second and third thoughts when you consider situations."

" _Dankie_ , mum." Bekki said. Her mother's image smiled.

"Appreciated. But I'm not your mother. I'm just the image of your mother you carry in your head, based on fifteen years of knowing her. Which is no bad thing. Think of me as your Second Thoughts taking a shape you know, and talking to you as your mother would talk to you, based on all the conversations you have had with her that give you a good idea of what she would say and how she would react. On a good day, I might embody your Third Thoughts too."

Petulia came back with two mugs of tea. Bekki returned to the farmyard and accepted one with thanks.

"Who were you talking to?" Petulia asked. "One of your, er, relatives?"

Petulia had encountered _those_ relatives. She'd had a long chat with some of them, in fact. Bekki grinned. It wasn't the dead Johannas this time. Sort of one of the living ones, filtered through Bekki's own psyche.

"Sort of." Bekki said. "Sorting out a few things in my head. Apparently I've got family who are going into politics. In Howondaland. Not sure how I feel about that."

Bekki showed her the interview with Julian and Chloe. It was a long puff piece, good PR, about a golden couple who featured in the society pages a lot. She spot-translated for Petulia, who had got the gist of it from the iconographs showing the golden couple in their luxury mansion, which Julian described, modestly, as a "starter home suitable for a young couple" that came with the marriage.

"Your Godsfather, isn't he?" Petulia asked. Bekki nodded.

"You miss him." Petulia added. Bekki nodded again. Petulia shoulder-hugged her.

"What's his wife like?" she asked. Bekki shrugged.

"Chloe? Never met her. Mum wasn't able to attend the wedding. Work commitments. My Aunt Mariella attended. She lives not too far away from Caarp Town, you see."

Bekki thought. Auntie Mariella had been very frank and direct in her report to Mum. Auntie Mariella was like that.

"Johanna, she's sweet. She's pleasant. I do like her. But I can't decide if it's because she's naturally a nice girl with not a single unpleasant thought in her body. Or if it's because she's as dim as an Ankh-Morpork street sconce at three in the morning, and shallow as the river Ulunghi in high summer. She really does adore Julian, though. I'm not sure if he's going to find her too clingy and needy. I can't see Julian getting on with that for too long and that's worrying. He might end up feeling suffocated, poor man. And above all, _she isn't Ruth_."

Petulia heard this out. She nodded, sympathetically.

"Sounds like the girl's been kept in cotton wool until the right potential husband turned up to marry her off to." she said. "Sheltered. Ignorant of a lot of things. Probably badly educated, too. And in that sort of society, daughters are commodities. You get the highest price you can for them. An arranged marriage between two families who are both far too rich for their own good, and both parties standing to inherit _millions_. There is seriously big money involved here. Forget love. That's a luxury the rich tend not to get. it's for poor people. "

Petulia shook her head.

"You've got to pity the rich. The rest of us think if only we had enough money we'd be happy. The rich have got enough money. They're in a position to realise that idea's utterly wrong. And they do persist in finding new and ingenious ways to make themselves unhappy, despite the handicap of having it all."

Bekki nodded appreciatively. Petulia could be one of the most thoughtful and reflective people out, in her own way. People who couldn't see beyond the superficial "um's" and "errr's" could get surprised by that.

They finished their tea.

"Shall we go and put in a bit in the butchery line?" Petulia suggested. "Looks like those five pigs were the last for now. Not many more barrows and gilts to go, I think. Gowther and the men should have finished the scalding, the searing, the scraping, and the skinning." **(4)**

The two witches took their place alongside some stolid Lancre women who were industriously butchering. Bekki had been surprised at first as to how little in the Lancre economy depended on cash exchange. Most of these women would go home after a day or two's labour with pork produce to the value of: a consideration in a Lancre winter, and capable of feeding a family for a long time. Petulia and Gouther also bartered pork for an equivalent worth of whatever they needed: flour, butter, milk, cheese, farm tools, tradesmens' services, cloth and leather for clothing, and so on. Pig hides to the local tannery and leatherworkers ensured an equivalent supply of goods coming the other way. A complex system of barter and equivalent worth fuelled the local economy. Tax to King Verence was paid in the form of pork produce to the Castle, as often as not **.(5)**

Actual cash money was mainly generated by pork sales to Ankh-Morpork. People in the city paid over the odds for lovingly tended free-range farm-reared artisan pork products, as opposed to the nasty soul-less mass produced stuff Sock's Butchers churned out. Petulia took advantage of this.

And when all the slaughter and meat preparation was done, and the last cold-boxes had been sent to the City, when the cold-store at Highmost Pigmanhey was crammed full of ex-pigs for winter, and when the temporary workers had been sent home with their agreed pay in pig produce, the people of Pork Scratching had a Bonefire and a hog-and-beef roast dinner in the open air. And Bekki was forced, albeit cheerfully, to accept she was wrong – you _could_ have a braai in winter. Lancre people managed it.

 _The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork._

"I understand that the National Unity Party in Rimwards Howondaland is a third-way party that seeks to recruit from Morporkian and Vondalaander alike, and favours neither." Drumknott sad.

"Indeed, Drumknott. In seeking to be open to all and biased towards none, the party is both mis-trusted, and even despised, by most. Yet it invariably manages to win _just enough_ seats to hold the balance of power, forcing one of the major parties to seek its support coalition rule."

Rufus Drumknott agai nattempted to get his head around the notion of _democracy_. It felt alien to his way of thinking.

"But, sir, why is a man like Charles Smith-Rhodes funding this party? It would seem completely out of character for him to support a losing minority political party. And his _own son_ is standing as an NUP candidate. I have to admit to perplexity."

Vetinari smiled slightly.

"Think about it, Drumknott. Neither the Vondalaander nor the Morporkian party is strong enough on its own to claim power. They are perpetually locked in stalemate. In these circumstances, backing the minority party that holds the key to power is _precisely_ the sort of thing I would expect a man like Charles Smith-Rhodes to do. Without needing to go through the irksome and tedious business of standing for political office himself, he is therefore able to sway the entire course of democracy in Rimwards Howondaland _his_ way. That is the sort of democracy I fully understand and can deal with. And getting his very capable son into a position where he can now learn the business of politics from the inside, and in a few years perhaps be considered for higher political office, is a very worthwhile thing to do. Mr Smith-Rhodes also has a most able person lined up to serve as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in the next government. I _do_ look forward to dealing with Mr van der Graaf again. Drumknott, please research the appropriate token of acknowledgement to send to a man I esteem, who acheives high political office in his own country? Thank you."

 _ **To be continued….**_

 **(1)** The Guild of Butchers, who didn't cheat their members and ensured top dollar. Petulia and Gouther were members.

 **(2)** The meat subjected to Fred Gydaire's cooling spell would not break down if subjected to heat, say if the transit box was put in a train compartment next to a heating pipe. It _did_ mean that any nearby pipes carrying hot steam from the train's boiler to warm the carriages would fail, freeze and catastrophically burst, something the Rail Ways took a dim view of. Any magic whose source codex had been debugged, revised, updated and cleared for use by Ponder Stibbons and HEX was _reliable_ and it _worked._ Put a cooling spell next to a heating spell, however, and the best outcome would be that the two, if equally strong, would just cancel each other out. Ponder thought this is what would happen. Err. Probably.

 **(3)** the resident songwriter in her Uncle Danie's fifteen-a-side team would make a song about that which would gleefully be bellowed out after the match. A rough translation might go: _His name is Stukkie van der Merwe and he's one enormous pervert_ …. And then the verses would explain the perversions involved, in great and explicit and inventive detail. Yes, there is indeed such a song. (sighs, deeply). The version you'll find on YouTube is fairly clean, however. Yes, I do know the primary translation of "pervert" in Afrikaans is " _verdraai_ ". _Perverte_ is given as a secondary alternative, however.

 **(4)** some explanation: a _barrow_ is a castrated boar; a _gilt_ a mature female who hasn't had any litters. These are apparently the prime candidates to slaughter for meat. Your stud boar is safe as the meat is too gamey and somewhat rank. If you want to slaughter an intact boar – you add insult to injury by castrating him first and waiting for about three weeks, as by then the body has flushed out the male hormones causing the meat to be unpleasant. Sows in season are also unpleasant in terms of meat and get a reprieve until they're off heat. Scalding consists of dunking the carcass in boiling water for a short period to soften the skin and render the hair and bristles softe,r so as to be scraped off. With an implement not unlike a wallpaper scraper. Searing is an alternative: lightly burning the outer skin to remove the bristles with fire. Skinning – taking the outer hide off for leather…. And no, I had to look this up too…

 **(5)** it's complicated. It was accepted that witchcraft was a tax-exempt vocation in Lancre. But Queen Magrat was also a witch. Petulia sent her occasional little gifts of pork produce now and again, from one witch to another. By sheer coincidence, that was approximately the same value as the tax she might have paid to King Verence if she were _not_ a witch, and therefore had to pay tax like a normal person. All Witches in Lancre had the same arrangement with Magrat, who was one of their own and who therefore was worthy of the odd token of friendship and appreciation. An unforced thing, as between witches. It all worked out, if people were sensible.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **PM from reader Dr Frankenberger:**

Perhaps the Assassins are getting a little hung up on expensive high tech non - ferrous equipment (down to being rich ?) when a Guild familiar with explosives would surely be aware of less costly non - ferrous (perhaps copper,bronze or brass) metal tool/weapon options. Major Ffetch - Felix might be able to offer advice.  
Great stuff though sir,

 **Reply:**

 **Good points!**

 **I see the Guild of Assassins as being in the same position as, say, the current American military machine. In a position where virtually unlimited finance is available for R &D and supported by a broadly sympathetic political administration. So they do these sort of things because they can and where money is no obstacle, the tendency is to go for the high-tech solution every time. (A parellel: American special forces, like the Navy Seals and others, are frequently consternated by their British counterparts and concede there is a lot to be learnt from low-tech improvisation - which has always been an SAS/SBS thing. If there's a need for a mission-specific piece of kit, the British approach is to do it as a garage workshop thing and lash it together in a cheerfully McGyver/Heath-Robinson sort of way. Americans tend to outsource it and buy a high-tech solution costing millions. The American way works and it's on the shelf for next time - but, as they admit, so does the British, for a lot less cash. A parallel was when the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force ran the same planes and a possibly fatal flaw occurred when the fuel tank leaked during a certain necessary manoevre - right into the rear-gunner's space and potentially over the red-hot breech of the machine guns. The RAF grounded their fleet of this plane for months and spent a lot of money, the modern equivalent of millions, on a solution. The Navy realised what the problem was straight away and their fix involved a wine cork on a string to plug the hole. **

**So you can be too clever and too high-tech. The Assassins may not yet realise this. No doubt my so far underused character of Major ffetch-Felix could point this out to them. He might suggest a return to the Bronze Age, perhaps, pointing out that while bronze is softer than iron and it blunts easily, it keeps an edge for just long enough. Maybe that's how the human race evolved bronze in the first place - to get an advance on elves who fought with stone weapons... sheer necessity. Thank you for liking the tales!**


	21. Op die Kaplyn

_**Strandpiel 21: Op die kaplyn – On The Border**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort, now easing, are a bugger, but at least I can do this.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales in the ongoing saga. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to.**_

 _ **Might be the last one for some time as I return to earning a living soon. Damn. I was enjoying time off with sufficient cash in the bank to make it feel good as the pain and discomfort ebbed. Still. Needs must.**_

 _ **Setting Bekki up for her next big move.**_

 _ **EDIT: sorting out horrible typos and rewriting or smoothing little bits that were a bit clonky first time out. And there's always one you miss after you think it looks perfect and you update chapter. To see it sitting there grinning up at you and saying "You missed me, didn't you!" Bet after I've Updated Chapter for the fourth time, there's still going to be one I missed...  
**_

 _Pork Scratching, Lancre. Bone Fire Night._

The Bone Fire was an annual ritual in Lancre and its origins went back a very long way. Petulia, who had been born locally, explained it in terms of its being one of _those_ points in the year. It marked the edge point, where a witch always stood, with Autumn behind and the last leaves having Fallen, and Winter before. _Witches stands on the Edge_ had been one of the maxims of Mistress Weatherwax, _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods_.

The Edge was where realities met. Where a witch had to be aware of different degrees of Real that were meeting where she happened to be standing. Think of it as a sort of beach where sea, land and, as people tend to forget, Sky, come together and meet. A border between worlds, if you will.

Bekki understood this.

"Borders. A _Kaplyn_." she said. Her family were kaplyn people. Her mother and aunt had been born and brought up on a kaplyn, a border. Which had a people on the other side who periodically tried to cross. In Vondalaans, a _kaplyn_ wasn't _just_ a border between two countries. It denoted a zone you patrolled and were vigilant in, where you habitually carried weapons, and had to be prepared to use them. Bekki understood this. She'd patrolled one kaplyn where the Dungeon Dimensions met her world, and had fought there. She had instinctively realised the Dancers represented another kaplyn. And deep instinct and ancestry had risen in her and said – be prepared to fight here, too. She was at least half Vondalaander. Some things were in the blood. Her family had only ever had to fight Zulus. Bekki's life had so far given her Dungeon Dimension Things and a hint of Elves to come.

"In the mundane sense, a kaplyn between Autumn and Winter." Petulia said. She understood where Bekki was coming from. They'd discussed it, late at night, over a hot drink, with much touching of iron. Bekki had explained about kaplyns, as her mother and Auntie Mariella had explained it to her.

"We need to be here tonight. Down in Lancre, they're dancing the Dark Morris. We light a bonefire. That's as important. There need to be Witches here. To just...ummm... be here. You know. Watch. Observe. Guard. To _patrol_ , you might say."

The Bone Fire was symbolic. Of cleaning up, tidying, getting rid, of things from Summer and Harvest that had served well, but which were no longer needed. Making a clean start. Paring down. For winter. Getting people into the right frame of mind for the winter months.

The massive Bone Fire was made up everything people thought necessary to burn at this time of year. Maybe it was a sacrifice by fire to the Wintersmith. Or else a two fingered gesture to the elemental spirit of Winter that said – you bring cold. But _we_ know how to make fire. At least we didn't weave a huge wicker man and put him on top of the fire, with somebody inside. Not _these_ days, we've moved on. The custom now was to put a human effigy on the top to symbolise that we _could_ put a real person there, if we were so minded. It usually took the form of somebody who was not generally well liked. Usually it was a representation of Duke Felmet, the pretender king. Or his wife. Safer than a living person. There could be consequences and fights, if the person being so honoured were to object.

But the bulk of the Bone Fire was, as you might expect, made up of bones. Seventy per cent of this one was the leftover skeletons of former pigs. With those of the beef cattle that had been slaughtered for meat. One or two ex-goats and sheep, although neither were extensively farmed up here in the hills. Sheep were a big thing further Rimwards, down in the rolling foothills of The Chalk. And while everybody kept one or two goats, they were only rarely slaughtered. Too useful alive, for milk.

The Bone Fire served a practical purpose. It burnt the bones. Otherwise they'd just pile up. And a day or two later, after the ashes had cooled, canny Lancre people queued up with buckets, wheelbarrows and the odd cart. The bone-ash was wonderful fertiliser on the fields. Petulia usually supervised everyone getting fair shares. Or there'd be fighting. Her own share was mixed with slurry from the lagoon, accumulated pig-waste. This had to be left to calm down for a few years, as it was far too lively to be used as fertilser straight away. Mixing bone-ash intro the slurry stabilised it somehow, meant it could go straight to fields and pastures that needed it. On arrival, Bekki had been asked if she smoked. No objection, but _no naked flames near the slurry lagoon_. Important.

She had gone down there to see. Once was enough. Pig waste from the sties was trucked here and tipped into the nearest holding tank. The oldest tanks, a year or two old and matured, could be safely drained and used for fertiliser. The newest waste... she shuddered. Her previous conception of the word "lagoon" had been an idyllic tropical island out towards the Rim, with a placid and inviting warm blue water bay under a hot sun, ringed by coral reefs. All those lying traitorous illustrations in the picture books she'd had as a child. _This_ interpretation of the word "lagoon" , a seething noxious bubbling sea of pigshit on a cold winter day in Lancre, had never even occured to the authors of _The Child's First Book of Discworld Geography – All The Wonders Of The Disc, With copious colour illustrations!_

" _Lagoon_ " here in Lancre meant a wide stagnant hole, lined with thick stone and rusting corrugated iron sheets, backed with very solid earth banks to ensure everything was retained and no leakage occured, discreetly hidden a long way downwind of the pig farm, where the accumulated evidence of the digestive processes of lots of pigs was trucked, tipped, and left to rot down. Building and maintaining one was a specialised sub-function of the Guild of Dunnykindivers. And Highmost Pigmanhey had three or four, which were used in strict and well-understood rotation. Pigs created a lot of waste.

Petulia had planted banks of mint, lavender, sweet basil, Agatean star anise, and other useful herbs, in between the slurry lagoons and the house. Just to mask the smell. The herbs had a hard fight, even though Petulia's Herb Garden was extensive, and leant very heavily on the more fragrant plants. A higher security area, tended only by witches with prominent warning signs at its margins, contained Herbs that had begun as cuttings from the garden of Mistress Weatherwax, _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods_. These tended to have different smells.

Tonight, anyway, the folk of Highmost Pigmanhey were out on a communal area outside the hamlet of Pork Scratching, on the edge of the traditional borders of the settlement. This location had been chosen carefully. Mainly to prevent the fire spreading to anything you didn't want to see burnt, and partly for _other reasons_. The component material of the Bone Fire had been brought here and carefully stacked and layered – everyone for some miles had contributed – and the fire built. A second fire, more of a long wide fire-pit, really, had been created a little way away, and a whole pig carcass, contributed by Petulia and Gouther, and a whole ox contributed by Barnabas Plomley, were rotating on spits. A barbecue had been set up. Bekki frowned. The ramshackle approximate arrangement was a _long_ way away from being a braai. And something Fourecksians, were any present to see it, might generously have described as "Call that a barbie? Suppose it's getting there. But she'll be right, mate. No worries."

 _It'll roast the sausages. So long as it doesn't collapse._

Just in case, Bekki ran through what she'd learnt about various degrees of burns and how to treat them. You never knew. Or sometimes, you could guess.

As afternon darkened into evening, Petulia and Apricity Brabble, one of the young trainee witches in the Lancre coven, joined her.

"It's time." Petulia said. "Now. We've rehearsed this. It _has_ to be on a count of three."

They walked through a crowd of Lancre citizens, who had become quieter and more expectant. The witches were about to make their contribution to the evening. Bekki grinned at Apricity, who was petite, thirteen, and very, very, nervous. She was the one who had shied away on meeting Bekki for the first time, seeing not so much another witch, as a weapon-festooned adventuress. Bekki felt vaguely guilty about this. The other young witches were understanding and somewhat protective of her.

"It should be easy." Bekki said, encouragingly. "Give them some obvious boffo. It's what they want to see."

Apricity, who had a look of terminal neurovore about her, nodded worriedly. Bekki patted her on the shoulder and gave her some more advice concerning what they were going to do and how they were going to do it.

Then the three witches took station around the bonfire, at equal intervals. There was an expectant watchful silence. Bekki waited silently for the prompt from Petulia. She knew a lot of the crowd was somewhere behind her, watching. She focused. It was an ability that had surprised Grandfather Mustrum. Then again, it shouldn't have done... she mentally readjusted. The trick was to make it _just big enough_...

The fireball appeared, several feet above her head. She knew it was there. She could see it in her mind's eye. The crowd _certainly_ knew it was there, judging by the reaction. Spectacular fireworks always got an _Ooooh!_ and had potential to delight old and young alike.

Hearing the _"One... two... three!"_ from Petulia, she let go of the slowly orbiting fireball, and threw it straight into the Bone Fire. With maximum boffo, for effect.

It joined the fireballs thrown by the other two witches, one of them smaller and more uncertain, and the fire leapt into life. Bone Fire Night had begun. The party could start and Winter would be invited in, like an unwelcome guest, metaphorical vulture's head and all. And Winter was being reminded. We can make fires. We have witches who can make fires. Be told.

Bekki thought back a few years. She had been eleven. She had been at the University to see Dad, her school day over and wanting to take the long way home, maybe meet Dad at his work and travel home with him. It was a nice thing to do sometimes. She had found Grandfather Mustrum had been shouting at him about something or other. Grandfather Mustrum shouted a lot. Often at Dad. Dad accepted this as part of the deal. Grandfather Mustrum was his boss, after all. Bekki accepted this.

But whatever he'd been shouting about, he brightened up when Bekki walked in. He welcomed her warmly. He also asked how she'd got past the Bledlows.

"Oh, Mister Nobbs said where you were. He even gave me directions." Bekki said, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. She gave her adoptive grandfather a very big hug.

"Hmmph. I see. Well, since you're here. Hear you've started learnin' witchy things with Irena and the others? Sure you'll do well. Make a good Witch. Got it in you to. Now, indulge an old man, young Rebecka. Come for a walk with me, if your father says yes."

Bekki had trustingly taken his hand and he'd led her around the labyrinthine corridors of the University. The place fascinated her. Judging by the looks on the faces of the Wizards they passed, it din't see too many eleven year old girls. One of the older wizards they met muttered something about "Ye Gods. It's going to be Eskarina Smith all over again." He didn't sound happy.

Grandfather Mustrum had replied "Pack it in, Runes. _Now_." And they'd walked on together. He'd also said to a group of younger wizards to stop bloody staring like that, can't a fellow walk with his grand-daughter in peace? She's me grand-daughter. I'm her grandfather. Nothing odd in _that_ , you men?

The younger wizards had looked confused and astonished. Bekki had smiled nicely at them. Dad, who was tagging along, had looked thoughtful for an instant. Then he had grinned quietly.

And then Bekki had been led into a large airy open room in the lower reaches of the University. It was big and empty and well-lit, and the walls were panelled in a warm and alive-looking wood. Small thick looking windows at ceiling-level allowed some light in. Most of the light, Bekki realised, was coming from Elsewhere.

A group of young wizards, too young to actually _be_ wizards, stopped whatever they were doing and watched. They seemed to regard Grandfather Mustrum – and Dad – with wary respect. Grandfather nodded amiably at them.

"Carry on, you fellows." he boomed, amiably. "Don't mind us!"

Then he turned to Bekki.

"Been meanin' to do this for a while now." he said. "Never really been able to find the time. Still, better try this out. Bekki, m'dear, this is the Gymnasium. Where wizards come to try out spells. Your father's a wizard, and you got the stuff from him. Just want to see what you can actually _do_. You know. The standard tests. Just so _we_ know."

He smiled amiably down at her.

"I'm here. Your dad's here. And this is a safe place. I want you to give me a fireball. In your own time!"

"Here." Dad said, quickly. "And _only_ in here." Dad seemed really keen to establish the rules, she noted. Grandfather Mustrum smiled benignly down at her.

"Just chuck it at the wall." he said. "Any wall, doesn't matter. That's octiron and sapient pearwood. Absorbs the magic. Vents it up on the roof, out of sight and out of mind. Your mum and her people _never_ take student Assassins up there, by the way. Too hazardous. Even for Assassins."

Bekki gulped, then focused. She heard the sniggering whispers of student wizards nearby.

 _Just a kid. And a girl. Bet she can't._

This made her _angry._ She decided she would show them. Bekki, her cheeks colouring with anger **(1),** let her mind focus on the idea of _fire_ and _flame..._

"Big as you like, m'dear!"

 _Let's see. Draw up warmth from the heart. Intention from the mind. Visualise a colour. What's the hottest colour?_

It was surprisingly easy to do. Bekki smiled slightly and threw the fireball towards, but just over the heads of, the group of sniggering and smug student wizards who were keen to see her fail...

"Great Om on a crutch!" an alarmed wizard shrieked, throwing himself to one side. The sniggering stopped and the group of students scattered for cover.

A very large and very hot fireball slammed into the sapient pearwood and octiron, making the room shake. Ponder Stibbons reflected that even though it shouldn't, it left a regular rose-shaped scorch mark on the wood that persisted for some time before fading.

But in the main, his eyes shut down in self-defence and he blinked away the afterimages for a while after.

Ridcully stood in reflective silence. It took a lot to silence him.

Bekki said "Was that big enough? I can make that _bigger,_ if you like..."

"No need, m'dear." he said, abstractly. "No need at all. We've established you can do it."

Then he grinned at the group of stunned and scared students.

"You know, if you bright buggers were student Assassins, this young lady's mother would be shouting at you for being _over-confident_." he remarked. He let this sink in.

"Don't think I wasn't payin' attention. You think women and girls can't do magic. Never heard of _witches_? And this little girl is the daughter of Professor Stibbons, here. Who in his own quiet way is _good_ at magic. Her mum, lovely lady that she is, is not magical at all. Not in the slightest. She is, however, an Assassin. And one of the _best_ at what they do. And young Rebecka here takes after _both_ her parents."

Grandfather Mustrum made them apologise to Bekki for being ungallant and what's more, bloody thick. She appreciated this. Then he bade them stick around, they might actually _learn_ something.

She had then been given a masterclass in generating, controlling, and safely using, fire spells. Grandfather Mustrum said he suspected she'd have an affinity with this. Given the red hair, her mother's side of the family being what they were. _And_ her mother's speciality as an Assassin.

"Might come in useful one day." he said. "For lighting fires and suchlike."

Her father had nodded, in a grim sort of stoic acceptance. And Bekki, on and off, had learnt a little Wizard magic. On the fly. As and when. Her father had made absolutely sure that it was _not_ to be used randomly, capriciously or on a whim. He had been very _definite_ about that. She had taken good note, but still appreciated the knowledge and the informal lessons.

* * *

"Good one, miss." Victor Lumming said, respectfully. Bekki nodded. Respect was hard currency to a witch, she'd learnt. And they'd _remember_ that fireball.

She'd now been junior witch in Pork Scratching for nearly three months. Three months was long enough to build a bit of experience. Local farms and homesteads were used to the young witch in the strange clothes who carried a big sword. People clued up on stories and newspapers and illustrated periodicals out of Ankh-Morpork had even worked out whose daughter she was. Mum had featured a lot in the news. She was one of the dozen or so Assassins who _anybody_ could identify. The famous ones. That helped too.

Bekki got a plateful of barbecue food and a drink and watched the Bone Fire. It was also there to guard and defend, Petulia had said. To make a stement to anything else that might be watching. Fire, at the onset of Winter, lit on an Edge. Another local word for it, she had learnt, was _wendfire_. It could summon, and it could banish. Bekki wondered what exactly might be summoned. She was listening for local stories and folklore to try to get clues. She was witch enough to know folk legends always had truth in them, at bottom.

She was uneasy about the stories of how small animals tried to hibernate in piles of wood and other combustible materials the thoughtful humans had built up for them to sleep warmly in. She and Petulia had diligently put out a few charms to deter them before lightling the fire; quite a few hedgehogs had got the message and scuttled away. She was glad of thnt. But there might be a few slow learners who'd never get a chance to realise it was a death-trap; Petulia had said you can't protect _all_ of them.

She heard a scuttling and looked down.

SQUEAK.

Knowing she was one of only three people present who would be able to see this, she looked down to see the skeleton of a rat, wearing a black cowl, standing up on its hind legs, and holding a very small scythe. It was ushering the souls of several slow-learning rats out of the flames. Rats who had failed the class.

It looked up at Bekki with an expression of reproach on its skull.

"I'm sorry." she said. "But at least it keeps you in work. Give my regards to Miss Susan when you see her next?"

SQUEAK. said the Death of Rats. He did a lot of his work in farming communities, in the never-ending war of attrition between country folk and rodents. Bekki had met him before.

"What do you know about Wendfire, by the way?" she added. The Death of Rats looked up at her thoughtfully.

SQUEAK? SQUEAK SQUEAK! SCREE! SQUEAK!

She thoughtfully decoded the answers inside her head, and thanked him. **(2)**

"You know _we_ don't do the Rite of Ash'kente stuff." she said. "Nor does my dad. He told me there's no need, as you're usually happy to answer a honest question, whenever you meet. And I suspect my mentioning that Miss Susan knows me, and she was my teacher for a while, makes you more inclined to answer me. But thank you, anyway. Have a nice night."

She looked down at the Death of Rats.

"I suspect if you're quick, you can nick something off the buffet table." she said. "Mrs Cranage won't be able to see you. And I won't tell."

SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats. It conveyed the idea that he, The Death of Rats, would have done that _anyway_ , but it was nice to be invited. He disappeared **. (3)**

Bekki smiled, and returned to the party. It was a nice festive occassion. And, Hogswatch excepted, there wouldn't be nearly enough of them for the next three months. Better make the most of it.

She thought she glimpsed the white cat again, watching from cover nearby to the fire. That was cats for you: staying in the warm, and discreetly unseen. By the time she got to where she'd seen it it had gone. But she still left a few cat-sized bites of choice pork in a likely spot and said "For You."

And wondered why she'd put a capital letter on the You. It felt right.

Bekki returned to the party. She was still watching the shadows, in the purposeful and methodical way her mother and Godsmother Alice had taught her, for any unspecified Things that might gatecrash. But the night had a distinct dearth of them. Maybe the Bone Fire had done its job and they'd all been properly warned off.

And the next day, the snow really started to come down. Bekki dug out the winter clothing Irena and Olga had sent her. She reflected that in the padded suit and the valenki overboots, she really did look like a well-swaddled small troll. But with the fur cap, with its pull-out semi-floppy black point that Irena called a _budionovka_ , she was at least _warm_...

She went to work humming one of the Far Überwaldean songs the Watch Witches had taught her. Something about fire and ice meeting. Apparently with interesting results. Bekki frowned. You'd just get a warm puddle, surely? And her Second Thoughts said _Eventually, yes._ She let it go, and got on with witching. _  
_

She thought ahead. Mum wanted her home for Hogswatch Week. She was keen to go. And in the spring, Mistress Aching had offered to take her in for a month or two to learn about sheep. Which meant lambing season. Bekki was cynical enough to suspect at that time of year, you couldn't have too many Witches out in the hills helping to lamb ewes. Extra labour. Largely, she suspected, unpaid. But she was looking forward to it anyway. The excited little girl in her wanted to see lambs. Lots of little baby lambs. And the older Bekki who took after her mother was thinking - _Lamb. It'll be a welcome change from pork on the dinner plate. Ask to take some of Petulia's mint with you for the sauce.  
_

She smiled and got on with the job that was in front of her.

Hogswatch first. Then back to Pork Scratching for a month or two. Then to see what the Chalk Country had to offer a learning witch. _And I'll be working alongside Mistress Aching. What an education!_

 _ **To be continued**_

* * *

 **(1)** Unkind people said this made her look like an aggressive tomato. It made Bekki angrier and redder. something of a vicious circle here. People who made the "angry tomato" joke tended not to, after a while.

 **(2)** Apparently Wendfire summoned the Wild Hunted, led by their patron god Herne the Hunted, in an unforgettable cavalcade across the sky that was said to drive men insane at the merest terrible glimpse of it. Yes. English folklore, and another nod to Alan Garner here, specifically _**The Moon of Gomrath**_. Bekki suspected Apricity Brabble was a Discly avatar of Herne the Hunted: small, timid, nervous, and looking as if she'd run in panic if anyone looked even slightly the wrong way at her. Yet she was brilliant at plants, botany, and tending growing crops. Arable farmers were learning to respect her.

 **(3)** Mrs Irma Cranage, who was assisting with the buffet and plating things for appreciative eaters, blinked slightly. She was _sure_ a beef sausage in a bap should have been in that space on the trestle table just now. Never mind, maybe she'd imagined it…

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Interesting idea in the Michael Palin diaries. The real reason for the demise of the British film industry wasn't necessarily bad management, bad films, lack of talent and lack of finance (although these things played a part).**

 **Palin recalls playing a part in a mediaeval fantasy film (** _ **Jabberwocky**_ **) sometime around 1977. He had to play a scene where he was fishing from a coracle as a mediaeval peasant, that conveyed something of the timeless romantic Dung Ages and bucolic isolation. He recalls this was on a stretch of river that in former times had doubled for Africa in Bogart's** _ **The African Queen**_ **, allowing large chunks of the movie to be made in Africa without ever leaving North London. And that he had to do any number of retakes for one very pressing reason.**

 **It hadn't mattered at all in the 1930's. And it had been hardly a problem in the 1950's. But in the 1970's, Britain's two major film studios at Elstree and Shepperton were now right under the flight-paths for London's two major airports. The "British Hollywood" was now having to break off outside filming every two or three minutes because of jet planes either landing at, or taking off from, Heathrow and Gatwick. Not just jet planes coming into view in a mediaeval panoramic shot – but the sheer sound and noise getting onto the soundtrack. This is a drawback to the film-maker – and you just cannot up sticks and relocate to a new location elsewhere. Not with a whole movie-making complex. I can see this would be a big problem with regards to suspension of disbelief.**

 **Apricity –** one of those wonderfully obsolete English words. It denotes - when it's a cold winter's day but the sun is just gloriously warm, or seems warmer than it has a right to be for the time of year. That's " _apricity"_ and the word dates back to the 1620s.

 **Brabble** : to have an excessively loud argument concerning over something inconsequential. The loudness of the argument is in inverse proportion to its importance. Everybody has brabbled at some point, especially online.

 **From a weird words site – is this Polish?** **Zenzizenzizenzic –"** yes, I might have saved the best two for last two. You've been rewarded, reader that stuck with me! This wondrous word means _to the power of eight._ In the 16th century, when people explained it to one another, they'd say: "It doth represent the square of squares quite squarely." Nice." Name for a character, or a Wizard, perhaps.

 **(1)** Unkind people said this made her look like an aggressive tomato. It made Bekki angrier and redder. something of a vicious circle here. people who made the "angry tomato" joke tended not to, after a while.

 **(2)** apparently Wendfire summoned the Wild Hunted, led by their patron god Herne the Hunted, in an unforgettable cavalcade across the sky that was said to drive men insane at the merest terrible glimpse of it. Yes. English folklore, and another nod to Alan Garner here, specifically _**The Moon of Gomrath**_. Bekki suspected Apricity Brabble was a Discly avatar of Herne the Hunted: small, timid and nervous.

 **(3)** Mrs Irma Cranage, who was assisting with the buffet and plating things for appreciative eaters, blinked slightly. She was _sure_ a beef sausage in a bap should have been in that space on the trestle table just now. Never mind, maybe she'd imagined it…


	22. Die Siterspeler

_**Strandpiel 22: Die Siterspeler, the Minstrel**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.**_

 _ **A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales in the ongoing saga. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to.**_

 _ **Might be the last one for some time as I return to earning a living soon. Damn. I was enjoying time off with sufficient cash in the bank to make it feel good as the pain and discomfort ebbed. Still. Needs must.**_

 _ **Put together out of a need to keep the tale moving forwards. Lots sketched out, too little time to write. More will follow. Apologies if this looks a little bit scrappy and rushed – what should have been two short opening scenes ran away with me and a brand new character, with a lot of potential of her own, leapt in from nowhere. These things happen. together with short laconics for coming scenes yet, or soon, to be written.  
**_

 _ **Pork Scratching, Lancre.**_

 _A meeting in the woods; dinner at the Castle._

Bekki found herself walking in the woods near Lancre Town, her valenki overboots crunching in the snow. She had a very rare hour or so of time to herself, as she was not expected at Nanny Ogg's before two She was to go to a reception at the Castle later, apparently; Queen Magrat wanted to meet some of the new young Witches, and you didn't refuse a Royal command. But for now this was private time, time to herself, and was getting to know the woodland paths around Lancre Town, learning to read the carved symbols in the treetrunks that acted as trail markers for people potentially lost in the snow. She shrugged. Assassins used similar markings, although more discreet and hidden in places where only people who knew where to look would find them. Her mother had given her a bit of basic instruction one day. This was pretty much the same code. If you scraped the snow away at about shoulder-height on a tree, you might find, after some groping, a carved arrow and a number of finger-deep dots. These and simple modifiers denoted things like _homestead, two hundred yards this way_ , or _farm, half a mile this way_ , or _Lancre Town one mile away in this direction_. And once you found one and followed the arrow, you knew, more-or-less-exactly a hundred paces away, there'd be the next. It was a simple system that had evolved over centuries, and everybody in Lancre knew it. She'd asked about it in the autumn, when men like Refinery Ellesmere and Consistency Congleton **(1)** had been out with sharp knives and chisels, renewing the markers for winter.

Bekki had also trekked the Veldt with people like her mother and Auntie Mariella. Auntie Mariella had shown her how to orientate yourself in a seemingly unhelpful landscape miles from anywhere. This was like the Veldt, only with trees and about a foot of snow. The same principles applied. You just had to adapt to local conditions. Besides, people had trampled down the snow on the footpaths. Fresh snow was filling their paths, admittedly, but the passage of other people could still be read. She could also identify the fairly recent passage of a small family of wolves. Nothing to worry about. She was, after all, a Witch. And she knew from the Zoo that wolves who could find other food didn't bother with humans. The snow was streaked brown-red with deep dragging marks, indicating the wolves had made a kill here and dragged it off somewhere. Deer, probably. So the pack had fed.

And, most reassuringly at all, she was carrying her broomstick, slung over one shoulder. If she _really_ got lost, she could fly above the trees and get a bearing that way.

Bekki crunched on, feeling cosy in the Far Überwaldean winter clothing, her breath condensing in the air, appreciating the day. It was nice to be on her own with nobody making demands on her. Time to be. And she was flying home for Hogswatch soon. Well. Not even flying. Kelda Peigi, of the local Feegle clan nearby to Pork Scratching, had made herself known to the new Witch and begged a favour, Kelda to Witch. There was one of her sons, a good boy but with a head full of dreams, whose ambition was to become a Navigator with the Pegasus Service. This, you ken, was a prestigious thing for a young Feegle, and there was much competition. Only the best became Pegasus Navigators. Would ye, Rebecka, consent to giving my boy some practice at the crawstepping, for him to lead you to Ankh-Morpork and back to your kin for Hogswatch? A practical test of his ability? I will send him with his instructor in the crawstep, the Gonnagle who is teaching him the craft secrets of making the Step.

Bekki, seeing the advantages of practically instantaneous travel that cut out up to twelve hours by train or broomstick, had agreed instantly. She thought a trainee Feegle navigator under instruction would be really convenient, and would pose no problems. And she looked forward to seeing her family again for the first time since September. Four months was a long time. Bekki tramped happily on. And then she registered movement in the trees nearby. Multi-coloured movement, a flash of many colours that stood out against the white. Snow tended to make a world monochrome. The impression of moving red and green, stark primary colours, was unmistakeable. Anyone could have spotted it.

Bekki stood and allowed the world to flow past her, looking for peripheral movement in the margins of her visual field. Then she got it.

She called a cheerful hello, reckoning that somebody dressed that colourfully and who stood out like a lantern on a dark night was not out there for any sinister reason. Then the jester emerged. She sighed. Bekki had seen people from the Fools' Guild back in Ankh-Morpork and had been torn between appalled fascination and head-shaking pity. It still appalled her that people her age or younger had been sent to school at the Fools and Clowns. To her mind, it was a sort of child neglect and cruelty. She felt sorry for them. She'd seen the hang-dog, slumped-shoulders misery of the typical student Fool. She thanked the Gods her education had been at Seven-Handed Sek's: some alternatives were just too grim to contemplate.

But there was something different here. This jester wore the motley, yes. Particolour red and green. With, she now registered, some bells. But the jester was standing with shoulders straight and head high. The clothing looked good on this jester, somehow right. And this jester was smiling in a happy way. Unforced, general, happiness, as if everything in this jester's world was just peachy. The jester also carried a musical instrument. Several, in fact. And this jester was _also_...

"Hi!" the jester said. "Sorry if I startled you. Although I don't think I did. You're the new young witch from up at Pork Scratching, aren't you? Pleased to meet you. I came out here to find a quiet place to practice. You'd be surprised how few really quiet private places there are at the Castle, where everybody's a music critic. Not what you want when you're rehearsing."

They clasped hands. Bekki introduced herself.

"Pleased. I'm Alison, by the way. Court Jester, Fool and Minstrel-in-Residence to King Verence."

Bekki blinked. She realised she was looking at a young woman, at most in her early twenties, who wore the motley with a sort of assured style, and some grace, as if she was born to it.

"Err... I didn't realise there were such things as women fools." Bekki said, politely. "I thought it was all men."

Alison Grosse grinned.

"Common misconception." Alison said. "The Guild hasn't been taking girl students for all that long and there still aren't that many of us. Do you sing or play any instruments, by the way? Know any good songs? I'm looking for the sort of things I could build into the act. Comic songs would be good. You know. _Funny_ comic songs. The ones the Guild doesn't teach."

They walked on together. Bekki politely asked if Alison didn't feel cold?

The Court Jester shrugged.

"Good thermals. Got the idea from the monks up towards the Hub. Spent my Gap Year touring, by the way. Sang for my supper. When people got past the motley and realised I can actually sing a bit and play my instruments – and that I can do a good performance _despite_ having graduated from the Fools' School - I always got a bed for the night and a square meal. _And_ some money, sometimes."

Bekki found out more about the new Fools' Guild. It sounded interesting.

"If you're who I think you are, your mother helped. When the reforms started happening, not quite twenty years ago." Alison said.

"Yes. Mum's never explained to me how she came to be a Fools' Guild member."

"She got to be one of the _first._ You know. Lady Fools. She and a group from the Thieves and the Assassins. Just to make the point. We owe them a lot."

Bekki then heard an account of the Monstrous Circus and the War in Clowndom that followed it. **(2)** Her mother had indeed been involved.

"So the first girls in the guild were studying for either circus skills or else to be Dorises to conjurors and knife throwers." Alison explained. "That's how I started. But they relaxed the rules a little, and allowed us to study for minor credits in other disciplines. I can walk tightropes and do trapeze. That was my major. Love doing it. But I also got to study Jestering and Troubador Skills. They told me this was only to round me out and for interest, and they wouldn't let me actually _perform_ anywhere as a Minstrel or a Jester. Or else the Jolly Good Pals would inflict some equal-opportunities punishment."

Alison Grosse made a face.

"Fortunately, King Verence of Lancre got to hear of the strange case of the girl who wanted to be a Jester and a Troubador. He wrote to Doctor Whiteface and said his court needed a Jester. And in his opinion a woman Jester couldn't be any worse than a man, and might even be better at it. And they couldn't refuse a King. So here I am. Licenced to practice, and it's _great_!"

Her face split with a grin of real happiness. It was infectious. Bekki decided she liked this woman.

Alison smiled at her.

"Know any good songs?" she asked. "Funny ones, don't need to be subtle. Not to this audience. And even the Hedgehog Song loses it a bit, after you've heard it three hundred times."

Bekki thought. Then she grinned.

"Well. There's the kind of thing my Uncle Danie sings. With the bros from his fifteen-a-side team. I'm not meant to know the words, and certainly not what they _mean_. But there's the one about Auntie Tina..."

After a while, they started to refine the lyrics into a Morporkian translation. With hand gestures. The two walked on together, whooping and laughing.

 _Her name is Tina van Wyk,_

 _Good taste and class have passed her by,_

 _And she wears a big, fake, Jools-The-Model wig_ **!(3)**

After a while, Bekki suggested a version of the Stukkie van der Merwe song, concerning the unfortunate Mr van der Merwe, and why his leisure activities made him stand out. It was a fairly new one in the Springboeks' after-match repertoire. Her sister Famke had written to her and quoted a verse or two and the chorus. Knowing the sort of tunes Uncle Danie and the bros liked, it han't been difficult at all for Bekki to deduce the right music to sing it to.

Then they moved to some traditional Sto Plains folk songs of various sorts. Bekki sat and listened to Alison accompaning herself on fiddle or mandolin. She really was quite good... after a while, Bekki joined in, at least on the choruses.

 _Let never a man a wooing wend  
That lacketh things three,  
A store of gold, and open heart,  
And full of charity;  
And this was seen of King Verence  
Though he lay quite alone,  
For he's taken him to a haunted hall  
Seven miles from the town_ **. (4)**

"Not the current King Verence." Alison clarified. "The _previous_ one. The one before Felmet, the pretender king. Do you know, it's funny how after a few years these things take on a life of their own? Lots of people still remember the old King, and were alive when he was, and met him personally. But there are a lot of myths starting about him. Things which never happened, and concerning which anyone around at the time could say "Whoa, hold on, that's not true, I was there!" Folk stories, things that only ever happened in people's imaginations. But they get to be more real than what was actually real, if you follow me. "

Bekki listened. The song told of how King Verence I had lifted the curse from a hideous monster and taken away the witch's curse that had turned her from beautiful woman to hideous beast. To do this, apparently, Verence had needed to... _ugggh..._

"Stretching it a bit." Alison admitted. "The old King Verence would apparently shag anything that moved. That's not folklore, that's fact. And the only witch with the power to do anything like that isn't around any more, they say. Which makes it _almost_ safe to sing. Hey, you've got to be edgy with your songs. Kind of topical too, with new material. What do you think?"

"And a song about a King Verence who was renowned for doing certain things." Bekki said, slowly. "Performed in front of a King Verence who actually isn't the _same_ King Verence. But people are going to listen and thing it's the same Verence. Who got practically raped by a hideous she-monster in the woods. Performed in front of Queen Magrat, who with the best will in the world is not renowned for being beautiful. Yes. Edgy."

Alison smiled.

"Guild charter." she said. "You're a Jester. You are _expected_ to take the piss a bit. You get a licence to. Verence and Magrat know that well enough. Nice people, by the way. You'll like them."

And Alison actually moved and stood normally, Bekki thought. No crouching, no capering, no pratfalling. She walked and moved like a normal person. More of a lithe athletic spring in her step than most people, admittedly, but a perfectly normal human being who just happened to look good in her Fool's rig. Which, Bekki realised, was not Fool-standard: she combined the particolour of a Jester with the dash of a Troubador, having seemingly taken a look at the uniform requirements for each class of Fool, and having mixed-and-matched the best. The result, incredibly, had style and attractiveness to it. Bekki began to realise why the Fools' Guild had exiled her to Lancre: it didn't want this sort of thing catching on. _They want to be seen to be more liberal. So they can't punish one of their few girl graduates for being dangerously innovative.. Not easily anyway. That's what this War in Clowndom was all about – the side that won doesn't want to be seen becoming the side that lost, the side that wanted old-time repression. And King Verence is a Guild graduate with influence on their ruling committee, what do they call it, the Council of Mirth or something. He asks for her. They put her out of sight, out of mind. And here she gets freedom to develop Clowning and things in her own way..._

Bekki stored these thoughts for reflection later. They walked on in the forest, Bekki coaching the minstrel in a couple of Vondalaans' childrens' songs, nice simple sing-along catchy things. She'd grown up on them when much tinier.

 _Jy met jou mandolientjie,_

 _Ek met my bandolientjie,_

 _Sing ons die Oukraallietjie saam!_

 _Sing ons van Waterstrome,_

 _Slange in Olienshotsbome,_

 _En n'ribbok wat daar teen rantjie staan!_ (5)

They moved back towards Lancre Town, sharing songs, sketching out Morporkian words that roughly translated and which fitted metre and scansion, the minstrel strumming her mandolin. Bekki had to meet up with the others at Nanny Ogg's; Alison to return to the Castle. But they'd see each other again that evening. Bekki started to look forward to her Royal Audience. The entertainment promised to be interesting.

 _ **Bitterfontein, RH: on the campaign trail.**_

 _The Candidate and his entourage: the Ladies' Committee and his Assassin bodyguard._

Bitterfontein is a city, or to be more scrupulously accurate, a large town, in the heart of agricultural country in the Caarp Province, a favoured part of the Howondalandian continent with clement winters and long warm summers. It is a long way from the restive and somewhat turbulent frontiers of Rimwards Howondaland, where farmers are forever watching to see what the neighbours are doing and who routinely go armed, just in case. Life is easier here and more settled. Less people carry weapons openly, and it is not unknown for a farmer to go about his business having left crossbow and sword in the weapon-rack at home, only bringing them out if there is a definite need.

Bitterfontein itself, named for its natural saline springs that need serious filtration if they are to be drunk by people (but which a local enterprising streak advertises as a sovereign healing remedy against practically every malady ever) is the administrative centre for six smaller villages - Kliprand, Molsvlei, Nuwerus, Putsekloof, Rietpoort and Stofkraal, and the farming communities that surround them. There are native townships too, but it is agreed by people in a position to do the agreeing that these do not really count. Higher up in the low foothills of the Sandrift, the land is attractively reshaped into terraces and grapes are grown, the foundation of a thriving local viniculture. The Orange River, named for the colour it picks up from sandstone bluffs and the rich red earth, makes its way to the Turnwise Sea, where boating and fishing go on as they have done for as long as humans have lived here. Those first immigrants here from the Central Continent only needed to Trek for a little way. Those Boers decided they had done all the trekking they ever needed to do, _dankie_ , and left the longer journeys to those who came after. In consequence their attitude to life is more relaxed and laid-back, and possibly less attitudinal, than that of those who braved what is now the nation's long unpeaceful border. The word _justnow_ could be the unofficial motto of Bitterfontein and the Turnwise Caarp, in fact.

The ethnic mix is approximately fifty-five per cent Morporkian-speaking to forty-five per cent Vondalaander here. There are lots of Xhosa-speaking blacks too, but, as everybody knows, they don't count. Morporkian and Vondalaander rub on in a sort of working harmony and even get on, with lots of friendships and even the odd mixed marriage across the divide. But at election time, old rivalries and memories emerge and the two white tribes, in a strictly non-armed and non _let's-refight-the-War-here_ sort of way, coalesce around older loyalties and banners. **(6)**

Today, in the town square at Bitterfontein, one of the candidates for election was making his pitch for votes. People had drifted in, out of interest and in the ever-present need, in sleepy agricultural communities, for entertainment. They were all keen to see what this fellow had to offer them, the outsider from the big city who was hopefully standing here. Normally elections here had no surprises. The Morporkian Party candidate had consistently won for thirty years. Oh, he was okay, in his way, and insofar as he bothered, had represented Morporkian and Vondalaander alike in a competent enough way. You had to, where the two ethnicities were fairly evenly divided and they all had votes. But now he was standing down, and the seat in the Volksraad was open. All three parties had put men up, knowing a handful of votes could swing it one way or the other. Or, as people were beginning to concede, in the _third_ direction. The unfavoured National Unity Party had put a big-name candidate out here. He was based locally, at a vineyard out in the Sandrift country where relatives owned the _plaas,_ and had been diligent in getting out and about pressing the flesh. People who'd met him said he was a bright decent fellow with enthusiasm and good ideas and, well, on the day, you never know, he might even be _good_ for this place.

And today, in the December sunshine, a week before the election, several hundred people had gathered in the square to attend a rally by the NUP's candidate. It was a pleasant day, there was a mood of expectancy, and the usual sort of hot-food sellers had gathered to service the crowd. A podium had even been erected bearing the NUP party colours, and several obvious campaign workers were gathered around it. They were polite, approachable, and reassured those who asked that while Mr Smith-Rhodes was running, unavoidably, a little bit late, he would be here soon to address them. While you're waiting, we can offer you a complimentary glass of fruit juice, white or red grape? Not the final fermented product, alas, but _very_ freshly pressed, from the Lensen vinery... we also have lemonade. Lime? Orange?

Black servants were on hand to fill and retrieve glasses. On a warm day, a cool drink was very welcome indeed whilst waiting on the candidate.

And then he was arriving. People craned to look. And were impressed.

Julian Smith-Rhodes was tall and red-haired, a good-looking man who had kept boyish good looks well into his thirties. He was impeccably dressed in a formal suit with, as those closest to him could attest, the discret lapel ribbons advertising that during military service he had won the blue ribbon of the Howondaland Star in Gold for extreme bravery in combat. As well as the Pro Vertute for inspriational leadership of men in battle. Not the medals themselves – they were only for wear with uniform - but the permitted ribbons, thought appropriate for civilian wear. Practically every man in his audience had been in uniform. They knew what it took to earn those ribbons. So he wasn't just a rich kid looking for a leg-up into politics, then.

 _I heard he got the Gold Star for fighting the Matabels. Then a year or two later, he led the defence of an Embassy that was under attack..._

And as Julian advanced to the podium, shaking hands and exchanging words with those who got close enough, even addressing several Bitterfontein citizens by name, those craning their necks to see took note of his entourage. That tall blonde man, dressed all in black, visibly armed... a good-looking chap, a bro, but obviously deferential to Mr Smith-Rhodes. Ag. That's an Ankh-Morpork trained Assassin. Has to be. And watching the crowd, alert, scanning. So if Mr Smith-Rhodes has had to hire an Assassin as bodyguard, somebody to diplomatically move people on when they've had enough of a handshake. That _costs_. You only do that if there's a threat on your life. So people want to kill this fellow and the assassin is there to guard? _Jislaik_ , that shows he's important, then... only important people draw death threats.

And the rest of the immediate entourage were female. This did not go un-noticed either.

 _Damn, he's surrounded himself with some damn fine looking women. Lucky bastard. The one nearest to him has to be his wife, the diamond heiress. Worth millions. And she's not faking the affection for him. On top of that she's a beauty. Ag, how can one man get it all like this? And the red-haired one. Looks vaguely like she might be family. I'll have to ask, but isn't she to do with a vineyard over in the Sandrift? That redhead's a doll too. She moves... and then the dark woman. Not especially tall but walking proof of all the best things coming in small parcels. Beautiful. She looks foreign, somehow. And she's fond of him too, you can tell..._

A war hero, important enough to have an Assassin as bodyguard, who could surround himself with attractive women. This was the sort of thing that drew attention. And a sort of wry approval. A fellow who could draw women like that must have something going for him.

Julian Smith-Rhodes, surrounded by his adoring womenfolk, took the podium and spoke. It was not lost that he was equally fluent in both Vondalaans and Morporkian and used both. With a bit of a harsh Transvaal accent he'd picked up sometime, admittedly, but the boy's good. What he'd actually _said_ didn't matter so much. Afterwards most listeners agreed he'd just spoken about the NUP's portfolio of promises, what it stood for, and how it would affect Bitterfontein. It was the _impression_ he'd left. Julian Smith-Rhodes, people agreed, was a man worth voting for. Maybe time to give the third party a chance.

Afterwards, their _wives_ gathered at a function in a local hotel, in its best room, all flattered they'd been invited. It was hosted by the striking-looking red-haired woman who'd been attentive at Julian's side during the rally, clearly supporting and admiring him in public. The Bitterfontein woman knew her: she'd become a local person after marriage, supporting her husband in helping to turn round a formerly strtuggling vineyard and winery and making it into one of the most profitable businesses locally. She wasn't yet the _mevrou_ there – that place of prominence belonged to her mother-in-law, who was also present here – but she was the young _mevrou_ , the _mevrou-in-waiting_ , taking over more and more of the daily management of the _plaas_ with her husband's mother's support and approval. And she came from a good Boer family out on the border, something the women here approved of – definitely one of us.

And she was attentive, seeing everybody got a drink, asking after husbands, sons, daughters, the health of the crop, the wellbeing of livestock, the smalltalk of Boer life.

A little later, she spoke about Julian, about having known him since she was thirteen, about the man he was, and how she thought he was a good man with just enough of a streak of _bliksemheid_ to make him interesting. This drew appreciative laughter.

She also said that while it was true that women did not – yet – have the vote, everybody here was married to or otherwise related to men who _did_. Think of it in terms of the vote not being just your husband's. They cast that vote for you too. And your children. To have a say in how our nation is run and how men are elected whose decisions affect us all. Why, she personally intended to ensure her husband, not a _complete_ idiot or I would not have married him, casts what is not just his vote – it's our _family_ vote - for Julian Smith-Rhodes. You can do that too, ladies. Speak to them. Ensure your thoughts and opinions are taken into account. Your husband votes for you too. Put this eminently fair and reasonable point of view to them tonight, and every day, till next Thursday.

Then, her points having been made, Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen, who had been trained in Political Theory and Practice by Lady T'Malia, sat among friends and neighbours and had a drink. After a while, she met up with her old friend Rivka ben-Divorah, who, on a visit to her old schoolfriend, had agreed to make up the numbers and provide more discreet security while all eyes were on the _obvious_ Assassin bodyguard.

"Wish you'd let me fake an assassination attempt." Rivka grumbled. "So easy to stage, and something for the newspapers to get on the front pages. People think if he's important enough to try to kill, he's our man. Result, more votes."

Julian had put his foot down on that one. As Mariella pointed out, men got nervous at the idea of Rivka pointing weapons at them. For some reason.

"Besides, could have gone wrong. Embarrassing."

Rivka shrugged.

"Your country." she said. Then she changed the subject.

"What are you doing for Hogswatch?"

"Got to go to the parents. Their turn this year. You'd be welcome." Mariella said. "You know how it is. A week of Mother demanding to know why there aren't any kids yet. Can you imagine? I'm only just getting used to being married to the _bliksem_. Actually having his children is not something I want to consider justnow."

Rivka expressed agreement. Then she said "Shall we go and find Chloe? Carry on re-educating her?"

Mariella nodded assent.

The two old friends walked on together.

And a little over a week later, Julian Smith-Rhodes was elected to the nation's Parliament.

 _ **To be continued**_

 **(1)** Another of those placenames from Cheshire, England. Interestingly enough, Congleton, Cheshire, is also known as "Bear Town", as it claims to be the place where the last native wild bear in England was hunted and killed sometime in the 1700's. As if that's anything to be proud of. There's also a Woolpit in Suffolk that claims the same for the last native English wolf.

 **(2)** Yes. I know.

 **(3)** The hand gestures at this point certainly indicated that a part of the body, or rather _two_ parts, were totally fake. But the hands were not pointing at the head. Oh, dear me, no.

 **(4)** An old English ballad performed by folk-rock band Steeleye Span – a Terry Pratchett favourite – as "King Henry". All traditional folk songs were new once and had to be written by _somebody_ …

 **(5)** It's an ear-worm. Believe me. You soon pick it up when sung. Basically, with my little banjo and your little mandolin, the world is our edible mollusc of choice and we can go anywhere.

 **(6)** Yup. Started with a real place and embellished it a bit and played with local geography to see what emerged. If anyone from the real Bitterfontein reads this – it sounds like a lovely place. I've taken your town and given it a Discworld makeover for the purpose of plot and humour. So… no real people are being worked over and your town, or a multiversal aspect of it, is being used as a plot location. Blame it on the example of what Tom Sharpe did to Pietermauritzburg when he turned it into Piemberg for his books?

 _Laconic notes for the next few scenes:_

 _ **Pork Scratching, Lancre.**_

 _Bekki winds down prior to flying home – her eventful flight_

 _ **Ankh-Morpork, Hogswatch week**_

 _Shauna's Gang reconvenes. Happy home for the holidays._

 _ **Bitterfontein, RH and Hartenbos, RH: A new politician is inducted to office.**_

 _Julian Smith-Rhodes as a Volksraad Representative. Pieter van der Graaf comes out of retirement._

 _ **Pork Scratching, and Lancre**_

 _Problems with the winter crop – Apricity B comes into her own as a witch. Davinia B adds expertise._

 _ **The Chalk**_

 _Sheep, sheep and more sheep. Mainly lambs. And a bit of cheese._

 _ **To be continued**_

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Lovely one – is this Dutch/Flemish?** **Houppelande –** saving for last but not least! My personal favourite word of all time, or at least for today. It means cloak and was used in the medieval days. I mean, how much cooler does it sound then to say _where's my houppelande?_ Or even the grandiose imaginative picture of swinging your _houppelande_ about you as you take your leave, head held high. I just love that word so much!

 **Hot damn. Just out of interest I did an Internet search on the name "Johanna Smith-Rhodes" and guess what – there are two people of this name in the same place in the SW United States who, by inference, may be mother and daughter. Apart from state and home town and some other bits of stuff gleaned from publicly accessible information which I will not disclose here, that's all I know… it appears both JSR's may have a presence on social media…. what can I say apart from "any resemblance to people living or dead is completely coincidental…" et c…. found her on FB (where she goes, in the main, by a different name – but still a JSR), or at least somebody who corresponds to information found elsewhere. Over and above that I have absolutely no desire or intention to "stalk". But if the real Johanna Smith-Rhodes in the USA – either of her - ever reads these tales… I hope you appreciate your fictional alter ego. Thank you!**

 **There does not, apparently, appear to be a real Alice Band out there anywhere. Good. Don't want her turning up to complain or offer literary criticism. Besides, if there is, she can blame Terry Pratchett as he devised the name and sketched out the character… all I did was to flesh TP's character out a bit. JSR is, however, 99.9% my character based on just one line of TP. The** _ **other**_ **JSR is 100% my creation, albeit that "Joan Sanderson-Reeves" is rooted in a very English character actress called Joan Sanderson, who played fearsome battle-axe characters in late middle age who were of a certain cut-glass social standing. Her best, or most memorable, role is the selectively deaf old lady who made Basil Fawlty's life even more of a Hell in** _ **Fawlty Towers**_ **. But my JSR, who could in many ways be related, is very much** _not_ **deaf…**

 **A commentator on the BBC this morning mis-pronounced "** _ **animatronics**_ **" as "** _ **enematronics**_ **". This brings some strange pictures to the screen of an active imagination…**

 **Looking up Scottish female names for Feegle Keldas. A random sampling of some beauties:**

Nighean This name means young woman

Nighinn Variation of the name Nighean

Nora Female form of the name Norman

Oighrig Possibly means speckled one

Peigi Scottish name for Peggy

Raoghnailt Means ewe (famale lamb)

Rhona Origin unknown


	23. Reis in die Buiteland

_**Strandpiel 23: R**_ _ **eis in die buiteland – travelling abroad**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Another amateurish, rushed and skimpy thing thrown together in a hurry so as to fulfil a need to keep the tale moving forwards. Lots sketched out, too little time to write. More will follow. Apologies if this looks a little bit scrappy and got to get something out there for Hogswatch as a sort of gift to readers.**_

 _ **Somewhere on the Disc:**_

The witch moved in the still silent world. At least, she tried to move. The very deep snow was presenting a few minor difficulties, not the least of which was that it is tricky to move normally when a drift of fairly fresh snow is halfway up your thighs.

She folded her arms and waited. At least the sky was a pure brilliant blue and it wasn't exactly likely to start snowing a blizzard again. Yet.

Bekki felt thankful for the Far Überwaldean winter clothing. It really did keep the worst of the cold out. But it wouldn't keep it out forever. A good reason to get on the move again as soon as possible. She adjusted the set of the _ushanka_ fur hat and checked the fold-down flaps were securely over her ears. She also checked, in case of misunderstandings with the group of large beweaponed men in furs and horned helmets who were for the moment merely watching her with curiosity, that the pull-out black pointy peak of the fur cap was visible, and which betokened her witch status to observers. Irena called this a _budionovka_ , or something.

She frowed and made an educated guess.

 _Somewhere near the Hub, probably. Snow as far as the eye can see. In every direction. A group of classic barbarians about two hundred yards away who have just seen a woman on a broomstick pop into existance out of nowhere. Straight into a snowdrift. The local word here for a witch... is it a Norn?_

Bekki thought again. There was a useful glossary of words and terms on Petulia Gristle's bookshelf. Miss Tick had had a hand in compiling it. It was a look-up compendium of words for Witch and terms for witch-related things in a lot of Disc languages. In the frozen lands of the Hub region, depending on if you were in Nothingfjord, Hubsvensska or the Swommi country, a Witch was a Norn, or she could be a Heks – this was pretty much universal around the Hub – and depending on the degree of local tolerance, may or may not be invited to participate in a _heksejagt_. She could be a _häxa_ to Hubsvensskans, or else _a trollkvinna_ , or even a _förtrollerska_. A Swommi might call her a _lumoojatar_ or even a _Noita_.

She'd read the book carefully, based as it was on Perspiciacia Tick's travels around the disc. She had noted Miss Tick hadn't been to Howondaland. Yet. This had given Bekki a slight sense of one-up on her mentor. She had made a point of pencilling in a few Howondalandian words for possible inclusion in the next edition. Just to make the point.

And now it all seemed less academic and distant, as she watched the armed men who, for the moment, were watching her carefully from several hundred yards away. Bekki made sure the hilt of her machete was visible, but made to attempt to move towards it. Yet. She took a deep breath and waited, watching the snow around her.

After a moment or two there was the first of three pops and some muffled swearing. She glared down as, in succession, two Feegle and a demon emerged from the snow. They'd actually been on the broomstick when it had materialised from Feegle-space inside the snowdrift. Being more than six inches tall, most of Bekki had been outside the snow. Her legs from mid-thigh down, still straddling the broom, were buried, however.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, mistress…" said the old Gonnagle, registering an as-yet-not-too-annoyed Witch looking down on him. "The boy is new, ye ken. Inexperienced, ye see."

Bekki smiled slightly. Gonnagles tended to be better educated, more thoughtful, more softly spoken, more restrained, than other Feegle. Lore had it that the best of them were selected from birth by their Kelda mothers and sent off to specialised and secret Gonnagle schools in the high hills, the legendary Ur-land of the Feegle race in remote Hyperllamedos, on the other side of Llamedos and Hergen. Gonnagles trained in secret and necessarily scaled-down stone circles in the remote places, which did not welcome outsiders. Lore also said this was the _real_ Druidism, the stuff that _worked_. That which Gonnagles of old had passed onto humans was necessarily diluted and distorted and tailored to human needs.

A Gonnagle who returned to his clan was then charged with training and identifying possible successors who, if they were not sent back to the Source to learn, would be taught sufficient wisdom. This included the power of the Crawstep, the magic that meant certain Feegle could move in more than the usual four dimensions of material existence.

"Are you unhurt, Angus?" Bekki asked, politely.

"A wee bit chilly in the spog regions, thank ye for asking, mistress." the old gonnagle replied, politely. He turned to glare at the far younger Feegle, barely adult, who was emerging, spluttering, from the snow.

"And does this look like the great city of Ankh-Morpork to ye, boy?" he said, pointedly.

The young Feegle looked round him, a view that took in great drifts of snow, an occasional stand of stunted pine trees, and a group of fifteen or so heavily armed Hubland warriors.

"Gordon bloody Bennett." the fourth member of the party grumbled. He did the thing with his forehead and his palm. "They're just surprised at the moment." said Grindguts the Destroying Demon. His tail twitched and he twanged a tusk thoughtfully. The demon turned his face to confront the warrior group and flexed his broad muscular chest in a meaningful way. Although only a few inches high, he radiated purpose and determination.

"Think you'd better get us out of here, _before_ they get over the surprise and come this way?" Grindguts said, nodding meaningfully to the small miserable-looking Feegle. "Eighteen Spa Lane, Nap Hill, Ankh-Morpork, for preference. If you need the bloody postcode, it's AM3 1DL…"

Bekki reached down through the snow and found the staff of her broomstick. She gripped the reassuring presence and hoped the panniers were still attached.

"Good idea." She said. "Wee-Archie-Aff-The-Midden, _do_ try to concentrate? Everyone get aboard. Ready, Archie? Ankh-Morpork, please. Thank you."

The trainee Feegle navigator nodded miserably, gathered himself, and made the crawstep…

Olaf Tillverkareavsmörgåsarsson, chief of the small warband, blinked as the _Förtrollerska_ , or perhaps the _Häxa,_ blinked suddenly out of existance, along with the trio of little people who he _knew_ represented bloody bad news. You didn't see them often up here in the snowy highlands, but the _blådåligahäftigalvar,_ the blue sprites of uncertain temper, were known down on the plains. And avoided. There'd been at least two of them with the Häxa. And a third who was _green_. Hubland myth said nothing about little green sprites. But he was prepared to bet any mention in myth would not be about their being friendly and in _our_ myths. And that Häxa had been carrying a sword too. Sword-maiden. Buggers, when riled. He breathed a sigh of relief they'd dissappeared again. It meant he wasn't obliged to try and attack, as the Code demanded. And the lads seemed relieved too. A Häxa with red hair who carried a sword. And had blue sprites with her. Any saga written about _that_ encounter would not be a long or noble one.

He shuddered, and motioned the war-band to move on.

 _ **Pratoria, RH. Two days before Hogswatch.**_

The new Minister of State for Foreign Affairs sat behind his desk as if he'd occupied it for all his life. In a way, he had. Nearly forty years in the Diplomatic Service had been leading up to this moment. He'd been ambassador to Ankh-Morpork for over half his career, acclaimed as the best possible man to represent Rimwards Howondaland's interests in one of the key diplomatic postings overseas. He had quietly amassed respect and prestige in that posting and even had the respect of Lord Vetinari. Who had indeed sent a suitable token of acknowledgement to him on the occasion of his rising to a position of considerable power and prestige in his own nation. It was sitting on the desk, Julian Smith-Rhodes noted, as an issue to be dealt with. Able to read the ornate scroll upside-down, a skill Julian had learnt and honed in all his dealings with powerful people whose desks he tended to observe from the other side, he wondered how exactly his former boss was going to deal with _this_ one. It was so typical of Vetinari to send gifts that both acknowledged achievement on the part of the recipient, expressed genuine appreciation and worth - and which _ticked_ at the same time. Julian also knew what exactly would be in the large velvet box next to the scroll.

The Minister of State pushed a full glass across to Julian.

"Thank you, sir." Julian Smith-Rhodes said, politely.

Two glasses were raised and clinked together.

"Well, so much for a long happy retirement." Pieter van der Graaf said, wryly.

"Did you see yourself as ever _getting_ one, sir?" Julian remarked.

Pieter smiled slightly.

"Not after your father suggested I stand for office. No."

Julian understood this. His father was a man who didn't need to get emphatic. Charles Smith-Rhodes talked to people. In a low and reasonable voice. Those people then reflected on what was being said. And then they did as they were being asked. It saved time. And Julian suspected his father had also spoken to Friejda van der Graaf, a woman who clearly missed the courtesy title of "Lady" that Ankh-Morpork bestowed on the wives of overseas ambassadors as a courtesy thing. Rimwards Howondaland did not have nobility. It was a republic and had officially done away with all that a long time ago. But the wife of a Minister of State, should she want to continue styling herself as Lady Friejda… this would be understood.

Thinking he had retired to a _plaas_ outside the clement coastal town of Hartenbos for a gentler life, Pieter van der Graaf had sighed deeply, accepted that his nation had another patriotic call on his time, and entered politics, easily becoming a Volksraad representative for his new home town. The backing of the Smith-Rhodes family had eased this somewhat.

Then the usual horse-trading had happened after the Vondalaander Party had entered coalition with the National Unity Party to form a government. As the price for its support, the NUP had demanded its people get several key ministries of state. Foreign Affairs had been one of them. Again, Charles Smith-Rhodes, a major backer of the NUP, had dropped a few words in certain places.

And a distinguished former Ambassador was now, without any drama or fuss, the man ultimately in charge of _every_ Rimwards Howondalandian embassy and diplomatic mission around the Disc. Among other things.

"A month ago, a retired Ambassador who wanted to sit on the _stoep_ with a quiet beer and just keep in touch with family." Pieter said, drily. Today, one level down from the Prime Minister and two steps away from being President. Not that I want _either_ , Julian."

"It might work, sir." Julian Smith-Rhodes said. His former boss smiled slightly.

"Depends on your father." Pieter said. "And the consortium of interests he speaks for. Who, I cannot help noticing, include your father-in-law."

Julian winced. He found the de Beers, with the exception of his wife, to be hard work. Pieter noticed the wince.

"Anyway." he said. "This isn't entirely a social call, Julian. How long have we known each other?"

"Seventeen years, sir. Since the Tobacco Fields battle. Shortly afterwards, I ended up at the Ankh-Morpork embassy as your junior military attaché."

Pieter van der Graaf nodded encouragingly.

"Your cousin Johanna suggested it. Even though her motives at the time appeared to be six-parts composed of making mischief, I thought it was a good idea. I spoke to your father. I got you. At no time did I ever regret that. Which is why I want you here. Now. Working for me."

"Sir?" Julian said.

"As of now, you are my Political Private Secretary. Which means you are based at this office and report directly to me. You, Julian, are my eyes and ears in the Volksraad. You listen to what's being said. Talk to people on my behalf. Listen to their opinions. Keep me informed. Willing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. And, Julian?"

"Yes, sir?"

"We've known each other for seventeen years. We do respect each other's abilities and talents. Would it kill you, at least in the privacy of this office, to relax a little and call me Pieter? Indulge an old man?"

"Yes, sir… Pieter."

Pieter van der Graaf smiled slightly.

"Thank you. Now, a fringe benefit of being minister is that I get a grace-and-favour house in the city, with servants, fully paid for. Friejda's over there now, terrorising the servants and making it clear what's expected of them. Why don't you and Chloe drop round for dinner? Friejda wants to see you both."

"Be delighted, Pieter."

"Good. Now we can discuss what to do about _this_. There's no denying Vetinari is strictly within the bounds of protocol, and this is a wholly appropriate and thoughtful gift. _Too_ damned thoughtful, in some respects."

Pieter van der Graaf held up the ornately calligraphed vellum scroll.

Julian Smith-Rhodes regarded it thoughtfully.

"Well. At least it means Friejda is now officially and formally Lady Friejda. For the rest of her days." he said. Julian studied the faraway look on the face of Sir Pieter van der Graaf, recipient of a honorary knighthood, as befits a foreign diplomat who for twenty years was as near to a friend of Ankh-Morpork as his position allowed him to be. The velvet box, Julian knew, would contain the sash, medal and regalia going with the office, to be worn on appropriate ceremonial occasions. Somehow, Julian suspected this did not include occasions like Heroes' Day or Independence Day.

 _ **Genua.**_

"I've never been here before." Bekki said, in a quiet reasonable voice she'd inherited from her mother. Generations of Assassin students had realised that when Johanna Smith-Rhodes spoke in that sort of a low reasonable voice, they were in deep trouble. It was the sort of low reasonable voice that said the speaker was an irritation away from _not_ being reasonable or low of voice.

"Aye, well, always something new tae see, aye?" said the Feegle, Wee-Archie-Aff-The-Midden. Bekki looked down and glared at him. There was a suspicion of tapping of toes on the flagstones. Other people in the plaza on a hot coastal day turned with interest to regard the red-haired young witch in the wholly unsuitable winter clothing. She was, indeed, starting to sweat slightly.

Angus the Gonnagle visibly winced. He glared at the junior Feegle.

"Waily." he said, simply. "Tapping of the feets."

Bekki sighed, deeply.

"I cannot help but notice, Wee-Archie-Aff-The-Midden, that the architectural feature over there, spanning a wide canal, has a remarkable degree of similarity with sketches and iconographs I have seen of the Bridge of Excruciating Screams, a method used by a past ruler to discreetly move unfortunate persons between cells and torture chambers. Which geography books tell me is is _not_ in Ankh-Morpork. It is, in fact, in Genua. Which is quite a lot of thousands of miles away from Ankh-Morpork."

Bekki turned and regarded her flight Feegle.

"So, Wee-Archie-Aff-The-Midden, would you care to try again? _Anywhere_ in Ankh-Morpork will do. I'm not fussy. I can always get a local bus home. Or a cab. But my own family front door would be nicest of all. I thank you kindly. In anticipation."

A few seconds later, the travelling party were back in Feegle Space, where Bekki had a brief conversation with a four-sided triangle. She remembered she'd been here before. So did the four-sided triangle.

 _ **Pratoria, R.H.** _

"Indulge me, Julian." Pieter van der Graaf said. "While Chloe and Friejda are sharing tips about how to be a perfect society hostess in their respective roles. I'll show you the garden. Lots of space there and the gardeners know to keep a respectful distance."

 _Where we can't be overheard_ , Julian Smith-Rhodes thought. He nodded assent and followed his old boss and mentor outside.

"Not the right time of year for protea to flower." Pieter said, indicating a flowerbed. "But come February. Of course, you don't see these in the Central Continent, outside hothouses in Ankh-Morpork."

Julian agreed, guardedly, wondering what the older man had in mind. They walked out together onto the lawn, aware they were getting beyond the reach of any listening ears. BOSS might have a few plants among the servants. Julian suspected his father _definitely_ would. He wondered who else might have a presence here.

"You miss Ankh-Morpork." Pieter said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Julian sighed. Of course he missed the city. For a lot of reasons.

"I'd like to be back there." Julian agreed. "But. Duty calls."

The older man nodded, and patted Julian's arm sympathetically.

"Keep in touch?" he asked.

Julian nodded. He tried not to be specific.

"Johanna. Her family. Heidi and Danie." he said. "Johanna's keen to know how I'm getting on. She writes as often as she can. Probably more regularly than she writes to her mother."

Pieter smiled slightly.

"I'm just betting she forwards a few pieces of mail. The ones you can't post directly."

Julian looked at Pieter. He wondered how much to reveal. The older man gave a knowing smile.

"I might have a use for that. If you're willing, that is."

Julian decided to trust Pieter.

"Actually _, those_ letters go through Mariella. The Guild of Assassins has its own arrangements. Mariella and Horst get official mailings from the Guild. She has to reply to them. The replies go through the Guild bureau in Pratoria. Anything for Ru… _another Guild member_ – goes back in the same mailbag. That goes privately to Ankh-Morpork. As you can imagine, nobody cares to intercept that. Except, perhaps, Lord Vetinari."

"Ah, yes. Vetinari." Pieter said, reflectively. "And once back in Ankh-Morpork, anything destined to go to another Guild member in the Zu… _another country_ – goes in the Guild post for _that_ nation. Where it goes by secure private courier, and the local nation also realises you do not interfere with Assassin communications. And any replies written by a Guild member in that country return to Ankh-Morpork. If marked _private and confidential_ for the attention of Mrs Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen, that item then goes to Pratoria, and then directly to Mariella. Who sorts the mail and ensures the letters go directly from her hand to yours. It may take weeks, but you have a private and secure means of communication with, shall we say, a highly placed and influential person in her own nation."

Pieter van der Graaf smiled the same smile.

"Julian, are you discreet in where you keep such letters, once received?"

"Yes, sir… _Pieter_. Mariella keeps them for me in a very secure safe place. I trust her absolutely. Horst knows too. But I would trust my official bodyguard and security consultant with my life. _And_ her husband."

"Smith-Rhodes family values." Pieter remarked. "The best sort. So, if I were to ask you to establish informal, discreet and deniable contact, on my behalf, with this person who lives in a place where we can not send mail by normal channels, would she be willing?"

"I can ask her, Pieter."

"Good." Pieter said. "We need such channels, Julian. We might not be able to establish open talks yet. But if my time in this job is going to mean anything, I'd quite like to be remembered as the man who said to the Zulus – let's talk. Neither of our countries can afford another bloody ruinous war and we both sustain armies that are too damn big and a massive drain on our national resources. And the bigger our armies, the more likely it is that some bloody fool's going to want to use them. And of course the nature of the job is that this has to be discreet. At first, anyway."

"I'll do what I can, Pieter." Julian said. "Even if this technically counts as treasonous behaviour."

"Julian. It's only treason if we _lose_. And I do not intend to lose. My head, least of all. Now, changing the subject. This bloody damned knighthood Vetinari wished on me."

Julian Smith-Rhodes considered.

"It's only a honorary knighthood. You aren't an Ankh-Morporkian national, after all. And Vetinari is within his rights to confer a mark of recognition on a distinguished Ambassador, as a mark of respect and esteem. It might offend if you refused it."

"An international incident. With one of the two superpowers on the Disc. On whom we depend for a lot of things. And if I accept. The Vondalaander party will say I went native, that I did my job in Ankh-Morpork to the complete satisfaction of the Ankh-Morporkians. That I'm tainted, and Vetinari's man in government."

"Agreed, Pieter. But the other party will hail you with exactly the same logic. You win one side, you lose the other."

They walked on together.

"You could put a press statement out. To say you accept the honorary knighthood in the spirit intended and that you regard it as a honour. But that for all everyday purposes you remain merely _Mister_ van der Graaf, a citizen of a Republic that gave up these things on independence. However, you accept that should you need to visit the Ankh-Morporkian embassy on official business, on their soil you become Sir Pieter the moment you step through the gates. As to do anything else would potentially cause offence."

Pieter considered this.

"Good thinking, Julian. Thank you. This way, I only have to face the wrath of Friejda, who will not welcome being relegated to a mere Mrs unless we visit Ankh-Morpork."

He grinned.

"You know, did I tell you Vetinari used this tactic to threaten Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes, on his first visit to Ankh-Morpork?" Pieter said, conversationally.

" _Really_ , Pieter?" Julian was suddenly interested.

"Yes. My esteemed brother-in-law arrived in the City and fought down a dangerous criminal who had evaded capture for seven months – a man who was even giving Johanna a lot of trouble, and who might have proven too much for even her. Then again, the fact she was nine months pregnant at the time and trying to fight whilst experiencing labour pains probably meant she was not at her best. And afterwards, I understand Vetinari was concerned at the idea of Barbarossa teaming up with one or both of the Ridcully brothers, with the consequent high potential for civic unrest and collateral damage."

Julian considered this.

"Yes. They did rather bond together. Especially over a drink. A large bomb going off in a crowded pub might have caused less potential damage."

Pieter smiled again.

"I understand that when invited to a reception at the Palace, Lord Vetinari _did_ raise the issue of the baronetcy conferred on Cecil Smith-Rhodes, at a time when he had just reversed the demise of Empire and added the state of Smith-Rhodesia to Ankh-Morpork's dwindling imperial possessions. A baronetcy, he reminded Barbarossa, is a hereditary knighthood that passes down to the eldest son in every new generation. Or would have done, except for the fact the War of Independence happened and resulted in our nation being born in the fires of war. And proclaiming itself a republic with no degrees of inherited nobility. Which meant the baronetcy passed into abeyance. Not, according to the rules of these things, revoked. Merely suspended. And the eldest son of Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes was the first Charles Smith-Rhodes, who married a Boer woman called Johanna van der Kaiboetje, identified himself strongly with her people, and fought on the rebel side in the War. He therefore declined to adopt the honour, and merely styled himself Mister."

"But he was still, officially, Sir Charles Smith-Rhodes. And he in his turn had children. With _that_ Johanna." Julian mused, working it out.

"Exactly, Julian. Vetinari reminded Barbarossa that as he was in Ankh-Morpork, this trifling matter of a baronetcy flapping around unclaimed could so easily be amended by knighting the current oldest son of that branch of the Smith-Rhodes family. And he, Vetinari, believed Sir Andreas Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes was a direct descendant of the oldest son of Sir Cecil."

Pieter van der Graaf smiled, happily.

"Barbarossa realised he was being threatened, and chose to behave himself while in the city. Vetinari did not press the point, and Barbarossa remains a Mister."

"So Aunt Agnetha was very close to becoming a Lady…" Julian mused. "I wonder how she felt about that? A Boer and descendant of Boers who fought for a Republic?"

Pieter grinned again.

"My sister was _not_ a happy woman. She in turn undertook to ensure her husband was a model of good behaviour in his stay in the city. And it gets better, Julian."

"How, exactly, Pieter?" Julian was intrigued.

"Well. Vetinari is also a keen proponent of equal rights for women. He believes half the population who are disenfranchised and unable to realise their full potential is wasteful to the City. He wishes this to change, with all due speed. He has been heard to point out that a knighthood descending only through the _male_ line is a relic of an outmoded social consensus. And that in this day and age it should be conferred equally on the eldest-born child, even if female. So if Andreas Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes declines to adopt a title and relinquishes it, by the new laws of hereditary peerage it goes to his eldest child."

Julian saw exactly where the older man's train of thought was heading. He boggled, and then grinned slowly.

"And the female equivalent of a knighthood is…"

"Exactly, Julian. In direct line of decent from Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes through his oldest son Charles. We potentially have Dame Johanna Smith-Rhodes, Dame of the Ankh-Morporkian Empire. And the Guild of Assassins values that sort of thing, in its teaching staff and senior people. I cannot see how she could refuse. However she feels about inherited nobility."

The two men laughed so loudly that a late-working black gardener looked up and wondered what was so funny.

 _ **Agatea.** _

"Wee Archie Aff The Midden?" Rebecka inquired, in a voice that was _very_ polite and reasonable. "I've never been here before. But I've read a lot of geography books, and I can identify places from pictures. And we currently appear to be on the upper slopes of Mount Fukuto, if I'm not mistaken. Which is a sacred and a holy place in the religion and culture of the Agateans."

She nodded down to the intent-looking group that was scrambling up the mountain path towards them.

"And if I'm not mistaken, that very excited priest, accompanied by six or seven horribly beweaponed samurai warriors, is coming up to greet us and no doubt to explain that gwai-lo, white ghosts, and filthy heathen foreigners, are not allowed on the sacred mountain, are defiling the place, and that desecration can only be expiated in blood."

She glared down at the hapless Feegle.

So. Let me suggest a course of action to you, if I may? Try and focus. Not on a place, Wee Archie Aff The Midden, but on an _idea_. I'd like you to consider a red-haired woman, older than I am, with whom I share ties of blood, kin, and above all, love, and put me where she is, if you can manage that? Thank you so much!"

 _That should be precise,_ Bekki thought. _He must be able to link me to Mum and get me there that way?_

And, as the fiercely gesturing priest and the samurai laboured up the slopes of the sacred mountain of Agatea, the broomstick and the travelling party shimmered and vanished…

"Hello again." said the four-sided triangle. "We do seem to be seeing a lot of each other these days, don't we?"

Bekki smiled politely.

"You know, when I first met you when I was five. I wondered how a triangle gets to have four sides. Mum said that makes you a square. And you said "no it doesn't. I'm still a triangle!" I mean. Er. How?"

"Your dad's who he is, and you get some of the things he tries to tell you about higher dimensional reality and polynomial m-dimensional wossnames, and you still don't get it?" the four-sided triangle said. "Ponder Stibbons's daughter? Gordon Bennett! Look, love. We're outside normal four-dimensional space and time. Just look upon me as the extrusion into five-dimensional space of an n-dimensional reality, okay? Ask your dad about the maths, he does quantum…"

And then they winked back into existance again. In a very familiar living room. The broomstick thudded to a halt and dropped to the floor, and Bekki stood up unsteadily.

"Well, _jislaik_!" a very familiar voice boomed, in surprise and amusement. Bekki blinked and looked around her. At some very familiar faces. Just not the familiar faces she expected to see.

Oupa Barbarossa threw out his arms in welcome. As did Ouma Agnetha.

"Our _liewe heksie_ has arrived." her grandmother said. "Unexpected and making a very strange entrance, but still welcome!"

Bekki ran to the grandparents who had been the first to call her the Little Witch and hugged both. Then she looked round. Uncle Andreas. His wife Auntie Nelli. Aunt Agnetha. Her husband Uncle Kurt. Bekki was received with genuine love and affection.

"You little fellows want a drink?" her grandfather asked Feegle and demon. "Some more of your people dropping by for a glass, later."

Then Bekki saw. The slender red-haired woman, who'd been watching with a look of quiet amusement on her face, stepped forward with arms extended for a hug.

 _I should have been more specific_ , Bekki thought. _When I said, take me to a red-haired woman bound to me by ties of blood and love and family, I meant Mum. But Aunt Mariella will do. For now._

Bekki and her aunt embraced warmly and fondly. Bekki realised she still had to get to Ankh-Morpork as her parents and sisters were expecting her. But Piemberg, Rimwards Howondaland, would do for justnow. She was with family, just before Hogswatch.

And, she realised, sensing other presences, not just her currently living family.

" _Can you be surprised, liewe heksie?"_ she heard her great-aunt Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes saying, in the psychic space. "Where else do you expect us to be for Hogswatch, than with family?"

Bekki sighed. She'd deal with this later.

 _ **Timed out – there's a lot more later, Part two of my Hogswatch/New Year tale to come….In which Bekki deals with issues of Family, both living and dead, and finally gets to Ankh-Morpork after several false starts and detours…. And how will her mother deal with an inclusion in the Patrician's New Year's Honours List? Read on….**_

 _ **To be continued**_

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Aaargh. Tried to type "Heroes" and predictive text gave me "Herpes". In the context of a solemn day of national celebration and remembrance called "Heroes' Day". Hmmm…**


	24. Gesprekke

_**Strandpiel 24: G**_ _ **esprekke met die dooies - conversations with the Dead  
**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Another amateurish, rushed and skimpy thing thrown together in a hurry so as to fulfil a need to keep the tale moving forwards. Lots sketched out, too little time to write. More will follow. Apologies if this looks a little bit scrappy and got to get something out there for Hogswatch as a sort of gift to readers. I will come back and expand or rewrite bits of this. Important right now to get it out there. Happy new Year! Happy hogswatch!**_

 _ **More tidying and picking up the last few scrappy typos. Picking up minor plot points and inconsistencies noted by alert readers and setting up a minor plot point for later (although not so minor for Heidi and Danie).  
**_

 _ **Piemberg, Rimwards Howondaland:**_

Bekki gratefully stripped off the outer layer of ushanka, telegroika and valenki. Her Howondalandian family watched with curiosity as she emerged, an imago from a cocoon, in what was perfectly normal, everyday, and not-at-all-strange normal dress of Howondalandian bush khaki. She recovered her sword-belt and pulled it in by a couple of notches to accommodate the undeniable fact that several inches of girth had gone, now the padded and quilted Far Überwaldean overgarments were off.

"Practical. If you're living in three feet of snow. I can see that." Her grandfather noted. "But over-dressed, for around here." Aunt Mariella took up the telegroika tunic and inspected it with interest, feeling the depth of quilting between her fingers and assessing the quality of the stitching. She looked thoughtful. _An Assassin considering useful equipment_ , Bekki thought.

Her grandmother inspected her, smiling warmly.

"I am thinking about how much like your mother you are." she said. " _Vorbei_ , I can see Johanna in you. It is good to look at!"

Bekki went to hug Ouma Agnetha. It was so good to see them again, even if she'd not meant to be here and had arrived completely by accident. She looked over her grandmother's shoulder to the cause of the accident, who had accepted a very small glass of klipdrift.

"I forgive you." she said, to Wee Archie Aff The Midden, the hapless young Feegle whose navigation errors had brought her here. The Feegle grinned up, sheepishly. His supervising Gonnagle glared at him. Words had indeed been spoken concerning the inadvisability of inconveniencing a Hag. A young Hag, admittedly, but one whose journey back to her kin had been delayed by a trainee crawstep navigator who had so far delivered her to the Hublands, to Genua, to Agatea, and finally _nearly_ getting it right. He'd been invited to consider an older red-haired woman, bound by ties of love and blood to Bekki, and to put her where she was. Bekki had meant her mother. Wee Archie had somehow managed to deliver her where her Aunt Mariella, her mother's youngest sister, was. Bekki was inclined to forgive this, as Mariella and her husband were spending Hogswatch at the family plaas in Piemberg. A lot of family were gathered here. For now, Bekki noted, it was the adults only: the children of the family were probably elsewhere under light supervision, probably with adult siblings supervising.

"Mum's expecting to see me sometime today, ouma." Bekki said to her grandmother. "She may worry if I do not arrive."

Ouma Agnetha smiled, understandingly.

"You have time for a few hours here, _liewe heksie_." she said. "your mother will understand. And I'm sure the little fellows will get you to Ankh-Morpork safely and quickly. They get us there surely enough when we need to visit."

That was true enough. Her grandparents – well, her grandfather – had cottoned on early to what the crawstep could do if Feegle could be persuaded or induced. On that first trip, he'd had witches and Pegasii available to get him to the City, in a way that neatly side-stepped a five or six week voyage by sea, or an expensive few days on a long-haul commercial carpet. Godsmother Irena and Nottie, and their Feegle, had got Bekki's grandparents there just in time. Bekki wasn't sure of the details, but it had apparently been on the night of her birth when great things had happened. Anyway, they came back every year for an annual visit. Mum accommodated , Bekki suspected, but they stayed as guests of her parents.

"Got Feegle here now." her grandfather said. "You might meet some later. Useful people. Respond well to witches, apparently."

Bekki considered this. Then she reflected that her grandmother was the only _living_ member of her family who always called her _liewe heksie_. This raised the other thing. Bekki looked around the room. She sighed, knowing that she was probably the only one who knew or could see.

Her great-aunt smiled lovingly at her. The smile was tinged with a wry and knowing sense of humour.

 _Nice to be back home, liewe heksie!_ It was a voice only Bekki could hear. Bekki sighed, and registered the fact her grandfather had already taken a few seasonal drinks, but so far was at the happy-drunk stage. She also registered that Uncle Kurt and Uncle Andreas were both watching him intently, as if they were fully aware, from experience, of what the next stage was going to be. Uncle Horst, fairly new to the family he'd married into, was looking ill at ease. Bekki remembered something Aunt Mariella had told her: that Uncle Horst's father had been pretty much a hopeless drunk who had let the drink get too much for him. A drawback in a man who owned a vineyard, a wine-pressing plant, and a distillery, for that logical next stage, that of turning the wine into something even stronger. The local word for it was _klipdrift_. Connissuers of these things considered the Lensen klipdrift to be one of the best. so had horst's father, who had taken to quality-controlling too much of his product. Menheer Lensen had died early, the damage too heavy, and the disease too deeply rooted in his head more than in his body, for even Igors to rescue. Uncle Horst now drank abstemiously and only on social occasions, as if he was aware the same might happen to him too if he allowed it. He did not allow this, Aunt Mariella had said, a little love and affection creeping into her voice.

Bekki looked first at Great-Aunt Johanna, who stood unseen in a space of her own, looking to Bekki's eyes as solid and as real as anybody else in the room, but who would be completely invisible to everybody else. Her great-aunt smiled at her again. Bekki looked across to her grandfather, Great-Aunt Johanna's brother, who was here, alive, and totally unaware his long-dead sister was in the room.

She made a decision.

"Ouma?" she said. Her grandmother smiled reassuringly.

"What is it, Rebecka? Is there something that is worrying you?"

"Ouma. Right now, _na-now_ , I really need to talk to you. I really need your advice. And something is happening that you should be aware of. But I'm not sure of the words."

"Ah, ja. Is this a witch thing?" Her grandmother gave her a searching, knowing, look.

"It is, ouma." Bekki looked around her. Aunt Mariella placed a friendly hand on her shoulder.

"And.." Bekki glanced at her grandfather and uncles. Her grandmother and Aunt Mariella followed the direction of her glance. "Somewhere else, ouma? Not here? There is a reason."

Ouma Agnetha nodded again and appeared to realise.

"We should go to the kitchen, I think. You remain _here_ , Andreas. This is womens' talk."

Her grandfather scowled suddenly.

"If a young man is treating you without respect, Rebecka, show him to me. I will make him sorry!"

Bekki coloured slightly.

"No, nothing like that, oupa. But something I need to discuss with ouma. As she says, a womens' matter." Bekki looked around her. "Aunt Mariella? Aunt Nelli? Aunt Agnetha? I would _really_ need you to be present, too."

She heard her grandfather make a big emphatic exhalation of air.

" _Eish!_ Horst, my boy? Pass the bottle. You should know that whenever the women troop off to the kitchen in a committee like that, it is bad news. These things _never_ end well."

Horst Lensen obligingly passed the bottle down, noting Kurt Maaijande and the younger Andreas Smith-Rhodes nodding emphatically. Seeing the looks on their faces, Horst decided it was perhaps time for a drink. They watched their respective wives troop out towards the kitchen with Bekki.

"Wonder what's on her mind?" Barbarossa mused. For just a second he thought he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. It stirred a memory of his sister, who had died just before Hogswatch, many long years ago. A sense of sadness welled up. He fought it down, marvelling that grief never really ends and even over twenty years later it can still come back and kick you hard in the guava, just when you aren't expecting it to. He quietly raised a glass to the iconograph of his sister Johanna, forever young, that hung on the wall. He completely failed to hear the impatient and exasperated voice that said

" _I'm standing right over **here** , you great thick oaf! Eish, brothers!"_

* * *

The women settled themselves around the kitchen table. Bekki felt reassured to be among people she had respected almost since birth as being older, wiser, sound, and capable.

Aunt Nelli smiled a big capable smile. Bekki realised nobody ever gets to have seven children without showing some sort of down-to-earth practicality. The same for Aunt Agnetha, the middle sister between her mother and Aunt Mariella. Aunt Agnetha had six. Aunt Mariella's skills and abilities, so far, did not include motherhood. Ouma Agnetha deplored this. Frequently. But Aunt Mariella was somebody whose opinions Bekki sought and respected. Right now she was sitting opposite Bekki with an encouraging and curious look on her face.

Ouma Agnetha brought out a tray of glasses and a bottle of klipdrift. She started to methodically fill them and pass them out, in what Bekki realised was an unconscious order of seniority: Nelli first, then the younger Agnetha, then Mariella. Her grandmother looked at her, then filled a fifth glass and passed it to Bekki.

"You are doing a grown woman's job, after all." she said. "And doing it very well, from what I hear. So it is right you should have a grown woman's drink."

" _Dankie_." Bekki said. She noted none of the others was making a move to drink. They were waiting for a cue from Ouma. Which was as it should be. Ouma Agnetha was _mevrou_ here, senior woman of the household. Granted, Nelli and the younger Agnetha were also _mevrous_ , but this was not their household. And Aunt Mariella was working towards being a _mevrou_ , but not in this _plaas_. Bekki sensed she saw this clearly from having been exposed to the informal hierarchy and pecking order among witches: she wondered if every gathering of strong women was like this.

"Now tell me, _liewe heksie_. This is something that comes of you being a witch, yesno?"

Bekki nodded. Her grandmother smiled slightly.

" _Maar_ , you are doing a grown woman's job. It is easy for people to forget that the person doing an adult woman's job is herself only fifteen. Therefore you have seen something, or you are aware of something, that the witch sees, but which the fifteen year old girl, who is also the witch, finds hard to understand, because she is still only fifteen. And you wish for guidance, and to discuss it. With older women."

Bekki felt a flood of relief and gratitude.

"Ouma, that is it exactly!"

She looked round at the quietly expectant faces.

"Ouma. There is a situation you should be aware of. My aunts also. I really don't want to be seen as a silly little girl who is just making a story up for attention or so as to feel importance…"

"Bekki. The last words I'd ever use to describe you are "silly little girl." Aunt Mariella said. There was a general expression of agreement. "What's on your mind?"

Bekki took a deep breath.

"Ouma. Aunts. I grew up thinking of my oupa, Barbarossa, as indestructible. That nothing could ever hurt him. Maybe I'm growing up, but today I know better. I know something that could hurt my oupa as badly and as surely as if I put the knife into his heart myself. And I would rather stick that knife into my own heart than do that to my grandfather."

The four women around the table looked intently at her.

"Tell me what you know, liewe heksie." her grandmother invited her. "Is this witch-knowledge, the sight that only witches have?"

"It may be." Bekki paused, and the four older women saw her listening intently as if an unseen sixth person was telling her something very important. Bekki shuddered at one point.

"Oh, that's so _sad_!" she said, to nobody who was physically there. She blinked away a tear. "Ouma. Sometimes I become aware that I don't know as much about the history of my family as I should. But oupa had a sister, a year or two older than he was. She was called Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes. She died, a few weeks before Hogswatch one year…"

"Yes. I remember." Her grandmother said, looking distant and faraway for a moment. "Never married. That was a shame. Your mother was named after her. Family tradition."

"And, ouma. Forgive me if this is wrong. But at this time of year, Grandfather might stop and think of her. And become sad and melancholy."

Her grandmother nodded. So did her older aunts.

"And that's the knife I don't want to stick between his ribs, ouma. But. How can I explain it?"

Bekki paused.

"Ouma, we haven't taken our drinks yet. May I fill four more glasses? I hope I can explain why."

Her grandmother nodded. Bekki took a deep breath and filled four glasses. She intoned a name with each one.

"Johanna van der Kaiboetje Smith-Rhodes. Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes. Johanna Maria Smith-Rhodes. And Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes. You are present in this plaas tonight. I cannot welcome you, though I know and respect you and you are always welcome to me. My grandmother, Agnetha van der Graaf Smith-Rhodes, is mevrou here, and any welcome to her home must come from her. I ask her to do so…"

Agnetha Smith-Rhodes blinked in surprise.

"Rebecka, are you telling me that…"

" _Ja, ouma_. As Johanna Francesca said to me earlier, where do you expect family to be at Hogswatch, other than in the plaas they all helped build?"

Bekki went to the kitchen drawer where she knew her grandmother kept matches. She returned to the table where her grandmother and aunts were watching her intently.

"Please don't consider this as a shocking waste of good klipdrift." She said, lighting a match. "It isn't. It really isn't."

Bekki nodded to the four spectral Smith-Rhodes women, who had gathered in the kitchen. One grinned and remarked that Agnetha looks more like a constipated shrew than usual, poor woman. Take a drink, meisie, and loosen up, for goodness' sake!

Then she set fire to the four glasses. Flickering blue flame ignited.

"May we all drink now, ouma?" Bekki prompted her.

Agnetha Smith-Rhodes smiled slightly.

"I cannot see or hear you." she said. "But if my grand-daughter the witch who is the daughter of a wizard is telling me you are here, then you are here. What can I say? You are family. You are welcome. Let's drink!"

Bekki saw the ghosts of four glasses being raised in reply. She sipped her own and tried not to shudder at the taste. Again she wondered how you actually _got_ a taste for alcoholic things. Sour. Nasty. Uggh.

Then she smiled as the four extra glasses on the table, still smoking slightly, lifted up by a few inches and clinked together. Aunt Nelli jumped. Aunt Agnetha asked Bekki exactly how she was doing that. As Bekki replied " _I'm_ not…", Aunt Mariella, trained by the Guild of Assassins to believe the evidence of her own eyes, said "Well, _I'm_ convinced."

The point having been made, Johanna van der Kaiboetje and her daughter Johana Cornelia allowed the glasses to return to the tabletop. Bekki smiled at them. They lifted the ghostly glasses to her.

 _Thank you, little witch._

Bekki toasted apparently empty air back. Mariella came to her.

"Something happened just then." Her aunt said. "When you broke off and said "Oh, that's so sad!" and looked like you were choking a tear down. I don't think you were acting that. Nobody's that good an actress."

Bekki shuddered again.

"That was your aunt. Oupa's sister Johanna Francesca. Explaining, and showing to me, exactly how she died."

Mariella patted her on the shoulder.

"I never met her. She died before I was born, pretty much. Your mother knew her a lot better. Then again, your mother is the oldest of us. I came last. The postscript baby."

"Ja." her mother agreed. "Just when I think it's all over, and Danie will be the last child I will ever have. I got Mariella. A late surprise."

Then Agnetha was serious again. "You saw how Johanna Francesca died?"

Bekki nodded, quietly. "Ja, ouma."

" _There had been a battle, liewe heksie. A little while after your mother was exiled to Ankh-Morpork. The Zulus crossed the river in strength. My brother Barbarossa fired the signal beacons and gathered such men of the Volkskommando as he could find. I rode with them. Barbarossa was not happy, at that time, for women to fight but there was no way he could have stopped me, and he knew that. Did I mention your mother was indirectly responsible for this? Shortly before she was sent to Ankh-Morpork, your mother led an attack into the Zulu country and killed one of their warlords. Quite emphatically so. This Zulu attack was retaliation. Just as your mother's attack had been retaliation for an earlier attack of theirs into the Transvaal. And so it went at the time. Retaliation and counter-retaliation._

 _Anyway. Your grandfather did not have the numbers to force a decisive victory. But we pursued and harried and ambushed that Zulu impi for a long way, slowing it, to buy time for reinforcements to arrive from Fort Rapier and from Lawke's Drain, from the regular army. Then there was a decisive battle in which I fought. I was tired and I was aware I was pushing myself a lot further than was wise for my body. But the battle ended and I was riding back here, to home. I was unhurt from fighting Zulus, unwounded. I put the ache and tightness in my chest down to physical tiredness and reasoned I could rest and sleep when I got back here._

 _I never made it, liewe heksie."_

Bekki had had a sudden impression of a memory of agonising explosive pain in her chest, and a memory of a voice saying in her ear

JOHANNA FRANCESCA SMITH-RHODES? I AM AFRAID THIS PART OF YOUR TREK STOPS HERE. THIS IS WHERE YOU MAKE LAAGER FOR A WHILE.

 _The men I was riding with recovered my body and brought me back here. My poor big-hearted great dof of a brother was distraught and could not be consoled. I am afraid he will remember and be sad again tonight."_

Bekki related a version of this to the women present. Aunt Nelli nodded and said "Yes. That's how it was. I was here. Helping organise a defence if they got this far. The men brought Johanna's body back. It was a sad Hogswatch that year."

"I miss her." Aunt Agnetha said. "She was funny and frank and said what she thought. Just like your mother, Bekki."

There was a moment of silent reflection. More drinks were poured. Bekki reached for the matches again. Glasses clinked in acknowledgement with nobody seemingly moving them. Then Bekki became relay point for messages from the dead Smith-Rhodes women to the living ones.

"Wellnow." Aunt Agnetha said. "They say talking to the dead involves moving glasses around on a table."

" _Of course, Agnetha Klara. This is better than speaking through some silly little woman puffed up on her own self-importance and sense of drama, who does not think to fill the glass first. But Rebecka, our liewe hecksie, learnt this skill from Mrs Cake of Ankh-Morpork. Who is a_ **good** _spirit medium who knows what is important."_

"If I wanted to be sceptical about these things." Mariella said, slowly. "What could you say, through Bekki, that would absolutely convince me you exist and this isn't all being made up? There are people out there who will need convincing."

" _A good point, Mariella Elisabet. What if we relay, through Rebecka, things about yourselves that you know and she does not? For instance, your mixed feelings concerning the man who later became your husband, when you saw him naked for the first time…"_

Mariella coloured. Her mother looked at her sharply. The others spluttered with laughter. Bekki, in her own voice, protested "I can't say _that_!", and then went on with _"nothing improper, Agnetha. Horst was near death. Mariella and her friend had to nurse him back to health and do all the needful things, such as keeping his body clean. Mariella had feelings of disdain for the man, but it cannot be denied that he had a handsome male body. Still does. She became conflicted between attraction to the male body she saw and revulsion for the personality she had seen associated with it. But he grew up admirably."_

Mariella reddened. The Johanna speaking through Bekki kindly added that she would have thought in similar ways had she been young and single and confronted with a good-looking idiot like the younger Horst Lensen. Bekki then described how it had been for Auntie Nelli when she'd arrived, young and very nervous, as the prospective wife of Agnetha and Barbarossa's oldest son, wondering exactly what she was letting herself in for when marrying into _this_ family.

 _And, by the way. Danie is in for a little present this Hogswatch. The sort of present that is nine months in the making. Heidi is not sure yet, so she has as yet said nothing. But when she is sure, Agnetha, she will tell people. Wait and see!_

Bekki, listening whlst the words came from her own mouth, realised what she was saying and felt a thrill of excitement. She saw her grandmother suddenly beam with pleasure and satisfaction. Then she frowned, and looked at Mariella, who failed to meet her mother's eye and looked uncomfortable. Aunts Agnetha and Nelli murmured with excitement.

"Do him good, I think." Aunt Agnetha said.

"Ja. Help him grow up. And Heidi deserves a child. If it isn't a boy, Danie is going to be lost. Nobody to teach how to throw and catch a football." agreed Aunt Nelli.

Then Johanna Francesca was speaking again.

" _You've aged well, Agnetha. Being married to my idiot brother hasn't been so bad for you." Bekki suddenly surfaced and said, in her own voice, "_ I can't say _**that**_! Not to my _grandmother_! About my grandfather!"

Then Bekki cleared her throat.

"Err… ouma. You know I love you. You know I respect you. But Johanna Francesca has just said you become more fun to know when you get the starch out of your knickers and loosen your corsets and take a few drinks. She said you could be really good company after a few drinks."

Bekki's grandmother smiled and her face softened.

"Now that is truly Johanna Francesca talking. Nobody else talks like that. Far too frankly, openly and unwisely. Tell her… no, I'll tell her myself – that naming my firstborn daughter Johanna after her was _really_ asking for trouble. And _vorbei_ , we got trouble with _that_ one! If it wasn't for family tradition we'd have gone with another name. But I _will_ have another drink with her. For old times'sake."

Later in the evening, Bekki was able to relay Johanna Francesca to her grandfather. He was astonished at first, then a little sad, then reflective, and then laughed with joy. Bekki felt glad she'd been able to perform this small grace for her grandfather and his sister, to bring them together again for a while, albeit indirectly. Barbarossa and Johanna Francesca had exchanged cheerful brother – sister banter verging on abuse for quite a while, and traded shared memories. Bekki, simply the medium for this conversation, had found it warming and enchanting. It made up for the inadvertent horror of sharing Johanna Francesca's death.

Then the other Feegle arrived.

Kelda Kirstie had been a Watchwoman in Ankh-Morpork. She'd had to do with the Pegasus Service and had visited Howondaland several times. She was a friend of Aunt Mariella. When the time had come for Kirstie to heed the call and found a family of her own, she'd asked Bekki's grandparents for permission to found a Clan here. A husband had been found in another Feegle clan, and those of Kirstie's brothers who had plagued Sam Vimes as the informal escort to their sister had craw-stepped with her. And now the Red Stone Clan occupied some old caves out on the fringes of Barbarossa's land, and was thriving.

Kirstie, invited to a Hogswatch drink here, had rounded out with motherhood and now had a growing family of big bonny sons. She, her Big Man and her guard, were clustered in the big living room with drinks and variably saying things like "ta, missus" or "thanking ye, mistress" or "Dankie, mevrou" to Bekki's grandmother.

"Mistress Smith-Rhodes is the mevrou here, the mistress of this place, and Kelda to her folk." Kirstie said to her escort. "We were given this land at her gift and that of Master Barbarossa, and they are our friends and hosts. Ye are to behave with respect." Then she smiled up to Bekki. And stood and bowed. Bekki bowed back.

"Rebecka Smith-Rhodes." Kirstie said. "Ye are growing well to your maturity."

Kirstie turned back to her folk.

"And I tell ye, brothers, sons. This family now has its Hag. And she is _here_. So behave. For it is not just me who commands this."

Barbarossa, his good humour returned, blinked in surprise, looked at Bekki, and bellowed with laughter.

"Rebecka is a hag?" he demanded. "Maar, the girl is barely fifteen! Some way to go before she becomes a _hag_! Although she's a bloody good witch!"

Kirstie smiled up.

" _Menheer_ Barbarossa. You are both right and wrong at the same time. Mistress Agnetha tells me this is something you are good at?"

Kirstie turned, and focused on apparently empty air, listened, then bowed acknowledgement. She smiled.

"And so does your sister. And your great-grandmothers. Including that Johanna Smith-Rhodes who is the founder of your clan, and the woman who built this place. She is proud and pleased of what you have made of it from what it was in her day when this land, to your kin, was new."

Bekki tried to stop surprise showing. Of course a Kelda would be able to see into the other worlds. She felt relieved she wasn't the only one.

"A witch is a Hag from the moment of her birth." Kirstie explained. "Maturity and adulthood come early, as you must all have noticed. I will say all old Hags must first be young Hags. Rebecka is, at fifteen, a young Hag. And my people have respect for Hags."

"Wellnow. Not too many people care to argue with her mother." Barbarossa said, thoughtfully. He scratched his head, as he always did when he was being thoughtful. He looked at his wife. " _Or_ with her grandmother." he added. Agnetha glared at him. "So you can say she has it in her blood. To take command. To tell people. Voice of authority. A good thing, for a witch."

"Indeed, menheer." Kirstie said. She looked over at the two Feegle Bekki had brought with her. They and Grindguts the Destroying Demon had been absorbed into the party and they stood out from the local tribe for several reasons. Grindguts, being green, was easy to spot in a crowd. Bekki understood her companion demon had been adopted into the local Feegle clan. But seeing him in a kilt and a tartan sash and answering to the description of " _Green Yin_!" could still make her boggle. And Howondalandian Feegle were different.

"Are ye surprised, Rebecka?" Kirstie asked. "There are few plants here that make the blue dye we use for tattoos. We had to find an alternative. And the tattoos come from that which grows in the earth. The clan tattoos mark that we belong to our earth. They are not just symbolic or for art."

The local Feegle were _red_. Or at least red-orange-brown. It took some getting used to.

"They use Rooibuis." Agnetha said. "Very clever fellows."

Red-bush Feegle. Bekki tried not to stare.

"And ye have a problem, Rebecka."

Kirstie smiled to the visiting Feegle.

"Gonnagle Angus. And Wee Archie Aff The Midden. Of the High Hog clan of Pork Scratching in Lancre. Where Peigi is Kelda."

"Indeed, Kelda." Angus said, politely. "The boy is nae too clever at the crawstep and brought us here. Among other places."

Kirstie smiled, tolerantly. "If you will permit, Gonnagle. Rebecka is with kin here and is welcome and she is loved and safe, but her own mother expects her home and will be worrying."

"Yes. This is true." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes agreed. "You can get her there, Kirstie?"

"I could." Kirstie agreed. "I know the Way and Rebecka's mother and kin are known to me. But it is perhaps best if Wee Archie Aff The Midden leads her there."

Kirstie reached out and took Wee Archie by the hands. He jumped and yelped, then went silent. She looked the young Feegle full in the eye.

"Much though I would like to see Ankh-Morpork again and speak with Johanna and Ponder, you will guide her. And now ye will guide her true."

She released his hands, then turned to Bekki. "I know you are worried for your kin here once you depart. But I can speak to your forebears and bring together the living here, and those who continue to live in a different world. They will still have a voice, through me."

 _She's right, liewe hecksie. Go now to your mother. We can speak to Barbarossa and Agnetha and the younger girls through the Kelda. Enjoy your Hogswatch, and we can catch up with you there, perhaps?_

A little later, Bekki straddled her broomstick again and departed with the love of her family as her last memory of Howondaland. After exchanging Hogswatch greetings with a four-sided triangle, she blinked as broomstick and passengers popped into existence again in an achingly familiar living room, one with weapons displayed on all four walls.

"Thank you, Wee Archie." she said, as Claude the butler looked over to her in mild surprise, as if this sort of thing was nothing new **. (1)**

"Did you have a pleasant and untroubled journey, Miss Rebecka?" he asked. "And may I offer you a cup of tea?"

A little after that she and her parents embraced joyously.

"See you made it home, then." her mother said, laconically.

"Catch me staying away." Bekki replied.

And Bekki was Home. Twice, in fact: both Homes, in the same day. She felt thankful and appreciative.

 _ **To be continued**_

 **(1)** _ **Guild of Butlers and Gentlemens' Gentlemen, training course 23(a):**_ You may be in the employment of the magically gifted and psychically enabled. Do not express surprise if your employer dematerialises or materialises randomly. This is only to be expected. Friends at Unseen University advise us that dematerialisation and instant translocation are physically tiring and burn energy. Be sure to offer a hot beverage with lots of sugar in these moments. There is a reason why witches drink tea with large quantities of sugar in it, after all.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **The New Year's Honours' list is a British institutional tradition, in which the monarch (notionally) bestows favours and social preferment on those thought worthy. I'm pretty sure Ankh-Morpork has the Patrician's New Year's Honours List, in which Vetinari hands out barbed prizes and ticking time-bombs to those he wishes to acknowledge and/or punish... who will feature and why? Watch this space or a soon-to-come space...**

 **General comment: in downtime at work today I sketched out a way of bringing this story to its natural (for now) end; it will take eight more chapters and will follow Bekki to the age of eighteen. So - three years and possibly another 40,000 meandering words to go yet! Getting Famke to graduation as an Assassin may be in the pipeline, as well as what form her "Rivka ben-Divorah", best friend and borderline sociopath, will take. And a few ideas are emerging as to which life-direction Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons will follow. If one sister must, by the laws of heredity, go into Magic and one must go into Assassination, the third is therefore free to take a direction all of her own. She will, too. I have ideas for Shauna, too, who is too good a creation (or memorable) to waste. Alison the female Jester will reappear, naturally.**


	25. Kom by die huis

_**Strandpiel 25:**_ _ **Kom by die huis**_

 _ **How dual nationality works out for one proud user.**_

 _ **Another one, with lots of footnotes**_

 _ **Another amateurish, rushed and skimpy thing thrown together in a hurry so as to fulfil a need to keep the tale moving forwards. Lots sketched out, too little time to write. More will follow. Apologies if this looks a little bit scrappy and got to get something out there for Hogswatch as a sort of gift to readers. I will come back and expand or rewrite bits of this. Important right now to get it out there. Happy New Year! Happy Hogswatch! Tidying to v1.1.  
**_

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork.**_

It was the last day of term before School broke up for the Hogswatch hols. First year pupil Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons waited in the Housemistress's Office of Raven House, placidly waiting for the attention of the two teachers who sat at the desk. She had not been invited to sit and for the moment, was quietly observing her Housemistress and the senior teacher, who were over at the desk, quielty conferring, and politely ignoring her. Famke had been summoned to the office by the duty prefect, and had left her dorm to comments like _I wonder what sort of trouble Tykebomb's got into this time?_ Famke was quietly pleased with comments like that. It all added to her reputation. The last time, it had been some older relatives of Cassandra Venturi, including her unspeakably grotty older brother Parsifal, who had wanted to take sides in the ongoing difference of opinion between their sister and that lower-middle-class Smith-Rhodes girl, who seems to think she can get away with _anything_ because of who her mother is. Famke had grinned and said _if_ people were paying attention, her mother was, if anything, a little bit harder on her just to make the point that there was no favouritism going on. You've not been paying attention, obviously. Besides, my mother's people are tough and self-reliant, and we're taught early on to solve problems for ourselves and not to go running to older relatives and Family for help. Which _you_ should learn to do, Cassandra? You've got a lot of Family round you at the moment and you're looking to them to solve your problems for you? Oh, and by the way...

Famke had then run at, leapt up at, and head-butted Parsifal Venturi, a boy four or five years older and twice her size. As another Venturi tried to punch her, she heard her friend Thora roar with anger and leap into the fight. It had taken three or four teachers to stop the fight and drag Famke away. And several more to deal with Thora, and a lot of Matron Igorina time to deal with the casualties **.(1)** But the Venturi family had laid off her then. Famke thought it was worth the trouble she and Thora had got into, even if her head was a bit swimmy and her face bruised from the punch that one of the Venturis had got through to her. It hadn't been _entirely_ a one-sided fight.

But the Tykebomb had established a Reputation. It was said of her that if she walked into a room, you had to check if the fuse was fizzing, and how long it had to burn down before she went off boom.

But she'd also learnt in her first four months at the Assassins' School. _Never piss your teachers off_ was a maxim. OK, Aunt Mariella had done it frequently when she was writing stuff for the School Newspaper. But she'd written it so subtly that you had to read it three or four times, before you realised she was actually saying things like _Mr Moody the Classics Master frequently gets very, very, obviously, drunk_ **.(2)**

Famke knew she did not have her aunt's writing talent. And it paid to be cautious. Therefore she was happy to stand, apparently disregarded, watching her Housemistress, Miss Lansbury, and Doctor Smith-Rhodes, as they wordlessly exchanged written reports.

Regard Famke. She has the family red hair and the freckles. She has the same sort of lithe energetic alertness that characterises her female relatives. Her build is boyish, wiry, spare and athletic. Her face has an alertness of look and a tendency to set in a slight frown, especially when she is thinking. In short, she is a typical Smith-Rhodes woman, albeit one of only eleven. Very little about her obviously comes from her father: a very slight squint, maybe, indicating that whether she likes it or not, spectacles may be necessary in her future. But this very slight hint of Ponder Stibbons about her notwithstanding, everything else appears to be pure Smith-Rhodes.

Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons accepted another report from Miss Gillian Lansbury. She read it carefully.

"Setisfectory." she said, putting it down on the desk and accepting another one. Famke watched her carefully. This time Doctor Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons frowned, glanced at Famke, then back to the report.

" _Not_ so setisfectory." she remarked. She accepted a third report.

"Definitely needs work." she said. Miss Lansbury agreed.

A fourth report got a grudging nod from Doctor Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons.

"Graded ebove-everage. Good."

And then they heard the school clock, fashionably late but not very much so, begin to chime five o'clock. All three heard it out in silence. As the fifth chime died in the air, Miss Lansbury said

"Well, that's officially the end of the School term. The Hogswatch holidays have begun." She reached for a sheet of paper that looked official. "If you'd just care to sign the release form, Doctor Smith-Rhodes..."

Miss Lansbury then looked over to Famke as if belatedly realising she was in the room.

"For the next two weeks, miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, _you_ are no longer _my_ responsibility." her Housemistress said. There was a hint of weariness about the words. She nodded at Doctor Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons.

"All yours, Johanna. I'm assuming she's packed such belongings as she needs to take home with her."

Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons smiled at her daughter.

"Come here, you." she said, no longer a schoolteacher. Famke went to her, realising she really did love her mother. Separation had made her fonder, somehow. And the hols were here.

"Got eny friends you might want to have come over during the holiday?"

"There's Thora..." Famke said, instantly. Her mother nodded.

"Thora." Johanna's memory opened the filing cabinet of students and rummaged for a description. It found one. "I'll see Dorothea is instructed concerning her dietary requirements."

She turned to Miss Lansbury.

"Come over, sometime, Gillian." Johanna said. "you're elweys welcome."

 _ **18 Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Professor Ponder Stibbons looked down at the long, heavy, cold-box that had been delivered by express cart from the railway station. He wondered if it hadn't just been the fact that the porters were pretty efficient that had got it here so quickly, both undamaged and uninterfered with. His wife's name had been on the delivery label, after all.

While Dorothea the cook fussed about where they were going to store it all, Ponder felt a stirring of pride. Again he looked down at the regulatory transit label, which was impeccably completed.

 _ **Authorised magical practitioner: Rebecka Smith-Rhodes (Witch).**_

His daughter had applied the magic. His own daughter. Fred Gydaire's Cold Box had been perfectly cast. He recognised several lesser spells, wards against theft, damage and misdelivery. Also perfectly cast. There were student wizards who were capable of _seriously_ screwing up spells like this. Bekki was _good_ at what she did. But above all, his daughter could now call herself Witch. This, he knew, was no small thing **. (3)**

"There must be a whole pig in there." Dorothea said. "Well, not the skin or the bones. The _meat_ of one. We will be eating pork for a long time."

"It won't hurt to leave it in the cold-box. For now." Ponder said. "The magic will last for some time and the meat will stay fresh."

Dorothea smiled.

"I know, sir. She is your daughter. You trained Miss Rebecka well in dealing with things of _muti_."

Ponder smiled proudly and accepted the compliment. He was looking forward to seeing both his absent daughters again for Hogswatch. He knew the servants and the goblins were looking forward to it too.

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons went quickly back up to the First Year dorm to pick up the few things she'd need to take with her for a fortnight at home. The dorm had depopulated swiftly as the girls departed to familiies and guardians, at the signal of the five o'clock bell that announced the End of Term. The abominable Cassandra Venturi, the would-be Alpha Bitch and thwarted School Bully, had been one of the first, allowed to leave earlier in the day along with other family members at the School, as, well, Rank Hath Its Privileges. Everybody else had still had afternoon lessons to attend. Famke's last lesson of the term had been Literature. It hadn't been so bad: Auntie Heidi had covered it. She had led a class discussion on the Hogfather in literature and culture around the world, and had talked about the way the Kerrigian custom of _Zwartepieter_ had travelled to Howondaland with the first emigrants. And how the anomaly of a representation of the Hogfather being a black man was accepted by her people, who saw nothing wrong or strange in that. Famke had smiled quietly; the Zwartepieter, in her family home, was usually played by Claude the butler, who was a _real_ black man. She knew her grandparents usually persuaded some of their black employees to play the role for them. It was held to be good luck if the first person to knock on your door on Hogswatch Day was black-skinned. Her mother saw a very big irony in that. As did Aunt Heidi.

But now all she had to do was to collect a washbag, some underwear, and the few bits of bloody homework that needed to be completed over the hols – didn't they realise these were _hols_ , for goodness' sake? And then go downstairs to where her mother, her mother again now and not Doctor Smith-Rhodes, was waiting for her.

One of the last few pupils in School was sitting on the end of her bed, combing and plaiting her hair. It was attractive long blonde hair, lush and long and silky. The fact it was growing on her _chin_ had been cause for comment and consternation.

"Hey, Tykebomb!" Thora said, pleased to see her.

"Thora!" Famke said. Then, concerned, she said "Isn't it going to be lonely for you? In school over the hols?"

Thora Bryttasdottir shrugged.

"You know how it is. Dad's attending on the Low Queen for a few weeks. Mum's one of her Ladies-In-Waiting. They've asked if I don't mind. And the Royal Court's deadly dull, anyway. Too many people being suitably reverent and minding their manners and talking politics. It'll be more fun here with all the Fourecksians and Foggy Islanders and Acerians and Zulus and things who live too far away to get home for the hols. Oh, and your lot, who don't have families here. And the Grag's finding local people who might take us Dwarfs in."

Famke and her friend had a quick hug.

"Mum says you can come over." Famke said. "I think she'd quite like to see you socially. I know you've only seen her as a teacher. But she's different when she's being Mum. I know she's involved in something with the Embassy, for the Howondalandian pupils here. Getting them together for a dinner at Hogswatch. I've got to attend, apparently. But you can come over to ours. Meet my weirdo family. My big sister, the big daffy tree-hugging witch, she's coming over for Hogswatch. She's weird, but you'll love her."

"When you say _witch_ ," Thora said, cautiously, "that's not an insult. You mean capital-W _Witch_ , right, as in pointy hat and broomstick?"

Famke nodded, ruefully.

" _That_ sort, yes." she admitted.

"People to respect, witches." Thora said. "Even big sisters who are witches."

The two friends parted, for now. Famke liked Thora. As the Venturi gang had discovered, a Dwarf piling into a fight screaming war-cries in Dwarfish is a good thing to have on your side and a terrible thing to have coming at you. And a friend who covers your back in a fight is a friend worth having.

Their teachers, who had seen Mariella Smith-Rhodes team up with Rivka ben-Divorah, and then Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande join forces with Emma Roydes, were getting a huge collective attack of deja-vu on seeing Famke Cornelia "Tykebomb" Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons finding common cause with Princess **(4)** Thora Bryttasdottir of Müning. History, in their opinion, was repeating itself. It was another reason why Famke's mother had said "Bring a friend over", having a good idea of who the friend was likely to be. It was always useful to get advance warning. Besides, Johanna thought, both Rivka and Emma had turned out to ber exceptional students. And exceptional students merited special pastoral care. They'd been worth investing something extra in. And no Assassin teacher cherished the prospect of nurturing a student who turned out, in the end, to be a better Assassin than you were. In those cases, better to have them graduate thinking fondly of you and becoming a friend. The alternative had happened too. And could provoke cause for reflection in the Staffroom. Johanna could think of half a dozen or so who she suspected, deep down inside, could give her trouble – or worse – if there were ever cause for their respective abilities to be practically tested. All but one of them were well-disposed towards her, and she suspected the sixth saw no reason to look for a fight. She hoped. It was best never to make it two.

 _Ye Gods. I'm getting older_ , she thought. _I'd never have thought like this twenty years ago._

 _ **18 Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Famke had been the first of the sisters to come home. Her father had been really happy to see her again. She realised how much he'd missed her, and it was a warming feeling. And it was really nice to be around mum and dad and Ruthie and the servants and the goblins and the dogs and the cats. Manni and Pippi were home next door and Davvie was there on the other side. There was even Ruthie's part-time nanny, sort-of-informal-governess, and almost-a-big-sister, who was full of cheerful exuberance with most of the swearing edited out in front of Ruthie. All it needed, in fact, was Bekki.

Famke took very great care around Mum to avoid anything that even remotely looked like a fight. She noticed Mum was taking scrupulous care on her side too. Both agreed life was too short and they only had a fortnight together. And besides, Shauna was there a lot. Her role in the family was undefined, but Mum was paying her, weekends and a couple of nights a week, to be there for Ruthie, in the absence of big sisters. Famke had decided she liked Shauna, after having been taught a few Dimwell street-fighting tricks, a few dirty songs, and an expanded Hergenian-accented vocabulary. The streetwise stuff had really been useful in the Guild School and gave her an edge over many of her peers, who _hadn't_ been brought up in an overcrowded slum house in a downmarket area of Ankh-Morpork. Famke hadn't either, but she'd learnt from Shauna, who _had._ Shauna was also scrupulously careful not to swear in front of Ruthie. Mum appreciated this. So did Dad.

And Shauna also had a gift. Famke had found her sitting in the back garden at Spa Lane, with an attentive circle of local children, playmates of Ruthie, sitting around her, intent as she told stories.

"Listen now." Shauna had said. "It is a sad tale I tell, a tale old as the hills and as grey as the dark ocean lapping at the shores of the land of Hergen, a tale of greed, a tale of vanity, a tale of the red bloody anger in the heart of man, and faith, at the heart of _woman_. I tell of the great Queen Medhbh who ruled the land with her husband and their seven sons, the seven brothers and princes of Hergen, and of the lust and desire to own the Great Bull of Culainge..."

Famke had listened, as spellbound as the others.

"And Cu Chulain, greatest hero of the land of Ulcer, was even as a normal man a warrior who none could withstand. But in his great anger and his wrath when the war-frenzy came upon him, when the unwise and the foolish and those who could not properly pronounce his name drove him to rage, his body spasmed and he became like to a demon or a human troll, and in his rage would scream the one thing his temper could not withstand...

" _Don't. Ever. Call. Me. Colin!"_

"For a geas, a spell, is placed upon Hergenian names so that the way they are written does not readily correspond with the way they are spoken. It is ever the fate of those called _Siobhan_ or _Niamh_ to hear their names badly spoken, to the point of causing actual pain to those called Siobhan or Niamh, in the mouths of those who know neither Hergen nor the tricky secrets of its spelling..."

Afterwards, Famke had asked Shauna O'Hennigan where she'd got all this from. Shauna had grinned sheepishly and said "Well, now, Kay. Your mother gave me a book. For my birthday. Concerning the myths and legends and the folklore of Hergen. She said she thought I should know these things about my own country, so I didn't lose my roots because of being brought up in Ankh-Morpork. Your mum thought I was putting down the wrong sort of roots, if you follow, and that to expand a miserable metaphor, so she said, they should be the right roots in the right soil. So I read it, and while I kept having to go to a dictionary and look the words up, I thought, this is powerful stuff! Then I went to find more books, and the stories spoke to me, and I put them into my own words, and I started reading them to Ruthie. Then other wee kids started to listen. Then their mothers brought them round to hear stories. I don't mind that. Not when they pay me."

Famke digested this. Then she said

"Shauna. You just made a long speech. And you never swore _once_."

"Sure, I know. It'll fecking well surprise Bekki. She is coming back, isn't she? I'm missing her."

Beki arived the next evening, after an eventful day of travelling. Claude, the dignified old butler, was first to greet her. He annouced her arrival in the correct manner, gravely informing her mother that "Miss Rebecka is home, madam." Johanna, pausing only to note that her butler was smiling as if he was genuinely happy about this, rushed to hug her daughter.

"You made it home, then." she said, laconically.

"Catch me staying away." Bekki replied, equally laconically.

Ponder Stibbons, in his study and trying to make sense of some term-end dissertations submitted by postgrad students – his job did involve _some_ teaching – became aware of the penetrating and high-pitched _squee!_ noises made by his daughters, plus Shauna, meeting up again. He decided grading and marking could wait, and went to greet her.

"We got her home, guvnor." said Grindguts the Destroying Demon. "Eventually."

"Thanks." Ponder said. He goggled slightly. "Errr... the tartan? And the tattoos?"

Grindguts grinned up.

"Joined the Feegles, did'n'I?" he said. "Got to know them in Lancre. They invited me to a fight, I took 'em all on, then afterwards, the boys said, hey, Green Yin. You're a canny fighter. We'd like ye to join the clan. Kelda Peigi said yes, and she give me the clothes. Good bunch of lads, when you gets to know them."

"Aye, mister Wizard." said Wee Archie Aff The Midden. "We was all right impressed with the Green Yin. Is it right the wee young Hag called him into being? That's strong magic!"

"Nah." Grindguts said. "I was there before her. Just a Version 1.4 imp created in a breeding vat somewhere. Then Bekki comes along and she gives me that bit more. I went beyond me programming 'cos she give me that push. Learnt what I was capable of. I owes her."

"She made ye, laddie." Gonnagle Angus said. "I am glad to see you give the Hag the correct degree of respect, aye."

Johanna looked down at demon and Feegle, who all went silent.

"You are Mistress of this place, mistress?" Angus said, politely. "The word, perhaps, is _mevrou_?"

"Ja." Johanna said. "Here in my plaas I am _mevrou_. End I hear you people have great respect for Witches. But, end let me make this clear, witches have _mothers_. End I em her mother."

"Aye, mistress." said Wee Archie. "I hear you are the terrible Assassin who the Zulu folk call the Red Death? Sister to one also called the Red Death?"

There was a silence. Johanna glared at the Feegle. Somehow to them it was as terrifying as any aggrieved Witch. Bekki reflected that this wasn't a thing to say to her mother on first meeting her. It sounded a bit _personal_ , really. And she was impressed. Normally any human who wasn't a witch was just another bigjob to Feegle. But her mother was getting a sort of respect from the Feegle, on first meeting them.

Then Mum breathed out and smiled slightly.

" _Ja."_ she said. "Thet is my Zulu title. End my sister's. We both earned it. But here, I em wife to Ponder. End mother to these three young girls. Who include the witch you have escorted here. End I thenk you. You've earned a drink. Whet size gless do you fellows take it in? When Kelda Kirstie was here, she preferred a thimble."

"Is it true a Feegle clan once brought down Miss Band and tied her up because she was trying to excavate their mound?" Famke asked, interested. "That you're the only people to ever have got the better of her in a fight?"

"The archeologist girl?" Gonnagle Angus said. He was amused. "Aye, lassie. 'Tis a tale among our people. But that was _before_ your Miss Alice Band became what she is now. She had not then had the Assassin training, ye ken." **(5)**

"Enother time, perheps." Johanna said, quickly. She didn't want stories circulating among pupils concerning those few times when their teachers had slipped up. It detracted from the image and was bad for discipline. And, uneasily, Johanna remembered that time with the unicorn... she'd got _over-confident_ , and had just seen it as a horse with a horn on its head... **(6)**

Gonnagle Angus smiled slightly and changed the subject. He turned to an appreciative Shauna O'Hennigan, who was watching them with great interest.

"Faith." she said. "Never thought I'd ever see the L..."

Angus raised a warning hand.

"Hear me, _cailin_." he said. "You are Hergenian, I see and hear. A wee word of advice. If ye wishes to be friends with the Nac Mac Feegle, do not ever use the L-word. In any of its forms."

Shauna digested this.

"So one of the old tales concerning what you might find at the end of the rainbow..."

"Not _that_ one, either." Angus said, firmly. "Although I see and read in you that you are becoming a _shanachie_. That is an old Hergenian tradition. You are blessed and you are fortunate, cailin. You have a talent. You are a _shanachie_."

Shauna blinked.

"A shanna-what?" she asked.

Angus did the indrawing of air thing.

"Ye are Hergenian and ye do not know what a _shanachie_ is? You are a maker of tales, girl. A weaver of stories. A bard, if you like. But one who has the magic and can make the old tales come to life, to weave and breathe them and to make them new. Just come you to a Feegle mound. Any mound. Then sit, and tell the tales. Ye will be heard and ye will be accorded respect. And the gonnagle, or if ye are fortunate, the Kelda, may tell you a tale of her own, one ye have not heard before, to add to your store. That was ever the deal. Ye will be welcomed, shanachie. These days there are few of you."

After a while, the two Feegle took their leave and craw-stepped back to Lancre, where Peigi was expecting them. Bekki noted that Angus was leading this time. She appreciated this. The old Gonnagle probably wanted to make sure they arrived. In the right place.

Bekki gave a version of their travels and their stop-over in Howondaland. Her mother listened, appreciatively. Bekki broached the topic of the ancestors. Shauna listened, open-eyed.

"Bekki. That time we were sharing a room and I heard you talking in Howondalandian. And somebody talking back. That was _them_ , wasn't it?"

"Yes. It was. Does it worry you?" Bekki asked. Her friend shook her head.

"You see them too?" Mum asked. She sounded envious.

Bekki quickly explained her theory that in the not-awake, not-asleep state of mind on the beach of sleep, everybody briefly becomes psychic and can see and talk to ghosts who are nearby. Mum thought about this.

"So in thet state of mind. It may be possible..." she said, thoughtfully.

"It's worth a try, Johanna." Ponder said. "It can't hurt. But you'd only be there for a few seconds. And you can't control it. It'd be like some sort of static or something. Fading in and out."

Mum nodded.

"Bekki." she said. "Are any of them here now?"

"No, mum. I left them talking through Kelda Kirstie. They were happy somebody else was there they could talk through. My guess is that they're still there now, talking to Ouma and Oupa and my aunts."

"Makes sense." Mum said. "Besides. Ghost stories on a dark winter night eround Hogswatch are sort of treditionel. When you are werm end comforteble in a safe place, with femily. You do not elways get the ghosts themselves telling them, though."

"Anyway, mum. Ouma said, or she admitted, that that was probably the biggest single reason why she pushed at _you_ so hard. For you to settle down and get married. She said it was an awful shame that your Aunt Johanna, the woman you were named after, died unexpectedly, young enough to be married and have children. But not being either a wife or a mother. Ouma didn't want _you_ going in the same way. History repeating itself. Errr."

Her mother closed her eyes and considered this. Her face went stone and unreachable for a few seconds. Then she smiled.

" _Ag_. So if I'd marred, and had kids. _Then_ got myself killed somewhere, leaving orphans and a widower. Mother would have been happy. _Eish_!"

Then she added "Mother meant well, of course. I believe I understand. Thenk you, Bekki."

Bekki decided to leave the other thing for now, for private. Well, one of the other things, the one that _wasn't_ about Uncle Danie and Auntie Heidi. The warning from Johanna Francesca that Mum should talk to a doctor – if she couldn't get to see that clever Igorina woman – about her own heart. The thing about hearts suddenly stopping apparently surfaced in the family every so often and Smith-Rhodes women were prone to it. Admittedly Mum only shared – Bekki thought for a moment – twenty-five percent of her genetic stuff, a quarter of her essential self, with Johanna Francesca. And half of Mum was a van der Graaf, who didn't have sudden heart attacks. But, Bekki decided, her mother should get it checked out. If necessary, if Mum was toughing it out and denying it to herself, as Johanna Francesca had, then she, Rebecka, would go to see Matron Igorina _herself_ and ask Mum's medically talented friend to drag her into the surgery and examine her at knifepoint, if necessary. Tie her to the examination table, or something.

But it had been a long day... she shared a room with Shauna that night. It was like old times. A lifetime ago, before she'd gone to Lancre to learn how to be a witch.

She did remember to put the grapes in the kitchen. You didn't see them in Ankh-Morpork in winter. Aunt Mariella and Uncle Horst had given her a very large bag of them to take home; Bitterfontein wine grapes. Mariella had said "Don't get greedy and eat them all yourself. Save some for your mother and your sisters."

And the next day, she'd met Auntie Heidi. Bekki had looked at her with witch-sight. Yes. There it was. The big solid aura that was her aunt's life-force. Irena had taught her how to unfocus her eyes and "see" this. It flickered around Auntie Heidi in shades of blue and yellow and green, helathy life-light. But there'd been a second, smaller, flame in there in orange and red, down in the stomach area where you'd expect to see it... and it was a boy.

Not knowing if Heidi had said it to anyone yet, Bekki made an educated guess.

"Roll on next summer." Bekki had said, a propos of nothing. "When it's _warm_ and all sorts of things are possible. Grune's going to be a really nice month, Auntie Heidi."

Auntie Heidi had gone very quiet and thoughtful in mid hug. "Yes. It will be." She said. Then she whispered in Bekki's ear "Your mother knows. I told her. Nobody else yet. Not even Danie, for now."

 _ **To be continued**_

 **(1)** Igorina had actually smiled with delight and said "At last! The Smith-Rhodes family never fails. Famke's in Raven House, isn't she? One to watch. Things were getting _boring_ after Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande graduated."

 **(2)** Mariella had actually written a spoof Classics essay on the great Latatian poets and historians, quoting the original Latatian and Ephebian, referring to wild parties where everyone present got hammered, dropping in quotes about the pedagogue with a habit of getting pissed after school, without _once_ mentioning the whispers about the School's Classics teacher or scurrilous rumours about him. Mr Moody did frequently say we should emulate the moral example of the great Latatians who had shaped the world, after all, as he sought to do in his own life. She had merely said she thought the Classics master was making a good point and was wholly consistent in his actions.

 **(3)** Setting up the system by which magical items in transit should be clearly labelled as such had been no small thing. It took a long time for the Post Office and the Rail Ways to agree on common wording and Deputy Postmaster Tolliver Groat had needed to be persuaded not to write a whole sub-volume of Post Office Regulations. Unseen University had been easy, in comparison. Mustrum Ridcully had pointed out that University bureaucracy could take it in its stride that every Wizard should have a unique Practitioner Identification Number that could be verified against an official list (3.1), and that most of the fellows would take this as an extra mark of recognition and achievement. However, Mistress Tiffany Aching and Nanny Ogg, the _de facto_ Number One and Number Two in the Witch hierarchy, had been opposed. On a visit to Ankh-Morpork for various reasons, the two Witches had dropped in on the committee discussion to present their professional point of view. Nanny Ogg had said it was a big bloody waste of time and witches didn't need no final exam, no graduation ceremony, and certainly no bloody number to say they was fit to practice as Witches. Either a girl was a witch or she wasn't, and that's the end of it! 'Sides, I'm not a number, I'm a free Witch. Like any witch in any Village.

Tiffany Aching, aware the Patrician was looking expectantly at her for her contribution, had said that "Mrs Ogg was correct to say we have no final examination – a Witch is always learning, including me – and we hand out no diplomas, and we have no University. But the authority of the witch, like that of the Low King of the Dwarfs, comes threefold. First, a witch knows, inside, that she is a Witch. Second, it comes from the people around her accepting that she is a witch, and giving her the correct respect. And thirdly. The authority of a witch derives from the greater community of Witches recognising her as a sister witch and accepting her as such. And believe me, Lord Vetinari, Arch-Chancvellor Ridcully, Professor Stibbons. Hear me, Deputy Postmaster Groat. If any woman signs this official form pretending to be a witch and according herself a status we do not recognise – _we will know_. And we will take the correct action. Therefore we need no number to identify ourselves. If that is all, my Lord? My husband is working at the hospital, l and it would be nice to meet him for lunch. That is all, gentlemen. Coming, Mrs Ogg?" Tiffany had then left the room in a way that conferred respect; the effect was slightly spoilt by Nanny Ogg grinning wickedly and cracking a dirty joke.

 **(3.1)** In Britain, the National Health Service legally insists all qualified doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists should have a Personal Identification Number as another safeguard against fraud, deception and identity theft Many doctors are vain enough to see this as another detail that sets them above the masses of people who are not medical doctors. Others see it as another bloody waste of time as the PIN can be forged or faked like anything else and only serves to keep the ever-growing NHS bureaucracy busy.

 **(4)** The original Dwarfish translates as _Eldest Daughter Of The Senior Mining Overseer_. Although it allowed Thora to glare at Cassandra Venturi, who had expressed dissent at a smelly Dwarf stinking up the dorm, and reply "So you're going to be Lady Venturi sometime. Big deal. I may be a smelly rat-eating Dwarf, but I'm also a fucking _Princess_. So I outrank you. And I'm also going to thump you. _Hard_." Miss Lansbury had had words afterwards. Lots of words.

 **(5)** My tale _**The Lancre Caper**_ , in which a young Alice Band discovers why no archaeologist stays in Lancre for long. Elves were a tough fight. Alice was outclassed by Feegle.

 **(6)** It's in _**The Discworld Tarot**_ : Johanna signally fails to capture a unicorn. Well. She'd been going out with Ponder for quite a while by then and had lost an essential qualification for she who would tame a unicorn.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Earlier today I travelled from Manchester to Bury on the famed Metrolink tram. I passed through a station with the exotic Lancashire name of Besses O'The Barn. This town exists as a district of North Manchester roughly in between Manchester and Bury, Lancashire. It's just before Prestwich, a district which takes on its own character as this is now the beating heart of Manchester's Jewish community, the biggest British-Jewish area outside London. Makes me think if my character Rivka, for some reason. Anyway. I keep meaning to look up how this wonderfully named place, Besses O't' Barn, got its name.**

 **I finally got it. Local legend has it that back in the day when Manchester was an insignificant little grothole of a town on the main coaching road from London to Carlisle and then to Scotland, there was a waystation here. A coaching halt, a sort of 17** **th** **century motorway service station, run by a woman called Bess and her daughters, in a converted barn. It had a reputation for comfortable beds, good beer and tasty hot food. Thus the term arose, from those wanting a beer and a dinner, that they were just going to see the Besses o't' Barn… this wonderful local story sounds so Lancre that it has to be used somewhere!**


	26. Bevordering

_**Strandpiel 26: B**_ _ **evordering - Advancement**_

 _ **Here we are again... yet another chapter.**_

 _ **I wondered why I was writing a lot but not apparently getting anywhere with this - and then realised that yet again, I was over-working things so that what ought to have been a brief summary paragraph or two was becoming a chapter in its own right. So... start again... original text preserved at the end as a "bonus".**_

 _ **That new job I started. It's a happily international band of misfits of all ages. And it's so funny how these things work out. I work alongside an utterly delightful African girl who is, Gods damn, a walking talking life model for how I picture Ruth N'Kweze. Hell, she's even called Ruth. Tallish, slender, athletic, beautiful, delightfully straightforward... the only "flaw" being that she's Kenyan and not South African. Ruth A is utterly lovely and a privilege to know. Earned brownie points here when she found out I can sing the first two-and-a-bit lines of Nkos'i sikelel'i Afrika (it gets into second verse territory after that, premature second verse syndrome)**_

 _ **Then there's Seb. Who comes from a place called Vaalwater in, yes, the old Transvaal. (apparently not officially called the Transvaal these days) His usual form of greeting to me is a bellow of "Hey, bro! HowZZIT?" and who appears bemusedly pleased about a Britse who is bothering to try and learn a bit of Afrikaans. Can't figure it out and wonders why I bother and what the bleddy hell got into my head, but, hey, bro, no biggie. Lekker.**_

 _ **Seb. A story about him. There is a smoker's corner established in the corner of the grounds for social pariahs. Every expense has been spared here. Basically it's an open metal framework roofed in tatty perspex. One day a far taller person left a bottle of Coke on a transverse overhead strut, slightly too far to reach up to for a shorter person. Seb considered this for a second, then delivered an almighty kick to one of the upright frames of the hut. The whole bloody thing shuddered as if it was all going to come down – I wouldn't have been surprised if it had – and the bottle teetered and then fell. Seb caught it easily as it fell, with complete nonchalance. I watched this and thought... applied violence and agression, with the desired end-result. Just reaching up for the thing would have been too easy... Yup. He's South African. Why am I not surprised? Plays rugby, too. Give him red hair and I now have my Danie Smith-Rhodes. As I say – funny how these things work out.**_

 _ **But. Back to the ongoing tale. First presentation: revisions will no doubt happen. Just need to get something out there.**_

 _ **Flashback to before Hogswatch, at the Assassins' Guild School, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Mrs Beddowe's House is probably the oldest and most prestigious House of Study at the Assassins' School. Nobody quite knows for sure how it got its name. It represents one of those time-fogged traditions you find in any upmarket boarding school which has a lot of history behind it, and therefore had a lot of time to build the obscure and mystifying web of School lore that is vitally important to anyone part of its community, wholly mystifying to those outside it, and which serves to establish a clear dividing line between We Who Are Of The School and all those plebs, proles and unfortunates Who Are Not, and who are therefore to be pitied and condescended to.

The most plausible story is that when the School was first established, six centuries before, a Mistress Beddowe was employed to furnish indigent poor scholars with some sort of basic accomodation. Nothing too comfortable, you understand. Just a large long room with space for thirty or so bedrolls.

Although long faded into obscurity, her name remains, as title of the oldest and richest House of the Guild School, one which attracts more than its fair share of sons of the nobility. Competition to get in here is fierce and there is always a long waiting list, although under its current Housemaster, Monsieur Henri le Balouard, it is accepted that for administrative convenience, any boy new to the school whose first language is Quirmian should be sent here to the care of a Quirmian-speaking housemaster. There are up to five Quirmian-speakers in each year, sent here regardless of whether they have a social title or not. (Being a Chevalier or a Compte makes it more acceptable, however).

Two such Quirmians are part of a gaggle listening in the corridor nearby to the housemaster's office, intently listening and trying to stifle any tell-tale giggles. Both count as Chevaliers, which helps, and the older will one day be a Compte. Besides, their mother obtained this grace for her sons. She considered that mingling with the true nobility of Ankh-Morpork would be educative for her boys. The experience would teach them many things about what a true noble gentleman should be – if only by default. And, she pointed out, if you ever have cause to spill any, that their blood is as red as anybody else's, and most assuredly not blue.

And it was abundantly clear to the boys lurking in the corridor that the normally good-tempered Monsieur le B was, rarely for him, bloody furious. Incandescent. The occassions where Monsieur le B really lost it were so rare as to be remarkable. He wasn't even bothering to keep his voice down, in fact.

" _You pair of idiots, you pair of arrogant prize fools, what on Disc do you think you were doing? You are a young man of sixteen and_ _ **you**_ _, two years younger. Do you think, even in your wildest dreams, that it was right or proper or seemly to try to pick a fight with a girl of eleven who is not even half your size? To go to that child and to offer her violence? What do you think you were doing? This reflects badly on the School, it reflects badly on this House, and above all it reflects badly on_ **me!** _And the fact she knocked one of you down and left the other staggering in circles and seeing stars – well, you wish to be Assassins. You both have a long way to go, gentlemen!"_

"Tykebomb." Emmanuel de Lapoignard said, laconically. His brother Phillipe-Henri nodded agreement. Neither seemed surprised.

" _Bien sur._ Can you get to be a Scary Mary at eleven? Looks like Kay's managed it. In her first term, too."

"Well. Start the way you wish to go on."

They listened as the loud rebuke raged on. Every word was clear, even through a thick oak door and across thirty feet of corridor.

Monsieur Le Balouard was officially Principal Lecturer in Quirmian language and culture. He also taught Dance and Deportment. The boys knew he organised the escorted trips to the Seamstresses' Guild that were a much anticipated part of the syllabus for boys in their Lower Sixth year. **(1)** General opinion was that this was worth the hazards and privations of the Black Track. And, on the Black, Monsieur le B taught things like Stylish Espionage, Intelligence-Gathering and Deniable Diplomacy. This boiled down to, apparently, learning how to defenestrate any number of adversaries and penetrate any number of willing women. His training was known to students as Defenestration and Penetration, D&P. There was also a course module in Drinks, Shaken But Not Stirred, and in making the sort of amusing quip that was mandatory, as a style point, when contemplating the corpse of a recently inhumed foe.

He looked like a well-preserved and athletic man in his forties, but he'd been teaching at the school for a long time and must be much older than that. Nobody really knew how much older. He'd apparently had a discreet career in Deniable Diplomacy, before becoming a schoolteacher to pass his skills on to a new generation. What was known about him was that his father was Quirmian and his mother came from the mysterious country of Hyperllamedos, Hubwards of Hergen and Llamedos. It made for an interesting mix.

" _Overconfidence! Did you not stop for an instant to reflect on whose daughter she is? And who her aunt and her cousin are._ _Not because this girl gets improper favouritism because of who she is related to. But think, you pair of imbeciles! This Guild believes in family lines, and with good reason. Assassination runs in families. It is in the blood in certain families. Has it never occured to you that young miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons has undoubtedly received a lot of informal Assassin training, before even stepping foot in this School? As well as being her mother's daughter? And you know her mother. She teaches, or seeks to teach you, certain skills. Would you pick a fight with her? Ever? So why did you think you could intimidate or attack her daughter?"_

Punishment was decided and awarded.

" _Now get out of my sight. Idiots."_

The students in the corridor dispersed, or tried to look as if they were there by happenstance, as a chastened and humiliated Parsifal Venturi and his brother Michael slunk into the corridor. Parsifal's nose was swollen and held in place, for the moment, by a strip of white plaster, the break reset by Matron Igorina. **(2)** Michael showed signs of a fairly comprehensive beat-down, jointly administered by Famke and Thora.

Behind them, Henri le Balouard sat back with a sigh of expressive Quirmian disgust, and contemplated the next thing he was going to have to do. This had its quantum of hazard about it too, but it had to be done.

He politely asked Johanna Smith-Rhodes for a moment of her time in the staffroom. She nodded assent, and politely asked how his interview with the Venturi brothers had gone. He gave her a precis. She nodded and thanked him.

"You are taking this well, Johanna." he remarked.

She shrugged.

"Not my place to get involved." she said. "Gillian's her Housemistress. Down to her to ellocate punishment. Here, I'm only the mother. Best I stay out of it."

Then she grinned.

"I tell you, Henri. Both the Venturi boys are keeping their heads down in my clesses. They look es if I em ebout to eat them elive. This worries end frightens them. I em not going to let them think eny differently. _Maar_ , the issue is being dealt with by the eppropriate people! I cennot get involved. It would be unprofessional to treat them eny differently, because they hed a little disegreement with my daughter. But they do not need to know thet."

Henri le Balouard smiled. There was nasty, and then there was _creatively_ nasty...

"But you will be speaking to Famke at some point?" he asked.

Johanna smiled, the smile of a mother who has worked it out.

"Oh, yes, Henri. I _will_. And very severely. But not justnow. When I get the girl home for Hogswatch. She _will_ get a speaking-to."

 _ **Hogswatch holiday week, Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Famke's two particular friends from One Raven, both girls who were forced by circumstances to remain in the School over the hols, walked up the drive of Eighteen Spa Lane together. Thora Bryttasdottir, who Connie thought looked like a self-propelled axe moving of its own volition - you had to look twice to register that there was a small Dwarf attached to a very large weapon – grinned up at her. **(3)**

"It'll be alright, Connie. Kay said her mother's okay about any friends of hers dropping by during the hols. Doctor Smith-Rhodes is pretty good to people who get stuck in School, they say. She knows what it's like."

Connie made a non-commital shrug. Quite a bit taller than Thora, they made an odd pairing and heads had turned. But, she reflected, an axe-armed Dwarf was a safe person to walk the streets with. She was even allowed a horned helmet in School colours, as this was Cultural. Nobody messed with Dwarfs with axes. Cultural also applied to the axe. Normally first year pupils were not allowed to carry weapons. But an exception applied to Dwarfs in the School. Cassandra Venturi had griped about this too. Cow.

 _Cultural_ also applied to that which Connie was allowed to wear in place of the ridiculous blonkett hat. Apparently a long-gone pupil of her ethnicity had made the case, and it had been allowed. But it just made her look even taller than Thora and it was a pig to remember when going through low doorways. But at least it wasn't the bloody blonkett...

"It's okay for you." Connie said. "Dwarfs are allowed in her country and they're accepted. But _my_ people..."

Thora patted her friend's arm.

"It'll be okay." she repeated. "Kay said you'd be welcome."

They knocked at the door. Connie noted the butler – he had to be a butler, he exuded Essence of Butler – who answered. Was black. Black skin, older man, fifties. The very white hair black Howondalandian men got when they got older. Which contrasted all the more against black skin.

"Yes?" he invited them.

"Thora Bryttasdottir. This is my friend Constance Muthelezi. Famke said we were welcome?"

The butler scrutinised them. Connie wondered if he had been briefed.

"Please enter, Your Royal Highness. I am assuming, Miss Muthelezi, that you have no connections with the Paramount Royal House?"

"No. Just _Miss_." Connie said. "Plain, ordinary, _Miss_."

"Wait here. I will announce you. Presently."

They waited in the hall. Both girls noted that even here, there were weapons. Kay had described her mother's weapons collection to them, and that these days it was overspilling into other rooms in the house. Apparently you could kit out a small Army, as long as you didn't mind it being an army of irregulars where not one thing matched another.

Distantly, they heard themselves being announced. There was a high-pitched "squeee!" of delight, then Famke came running to them.

"Come on in. Meet my weird family!" she said. "Get the feathers off, Connie, they're lopsided."

Connie took a deep breath, and they went to the living room. Doctor Smith-Rhodes stood to welcome them. She smiled slightly at both pupils.

"Errr... do I need to check my axe in, ma'am?" Thora asked, diffidently.

Johanna shook her head.

"So long es you promise not to try end hit enybody with it." she said.

She scrutinised Connie, who seemed fascinated with the display of Zulu weapons over the fireplace. Connie appeared to have registed that the central set had once belonged to an induna, a general. Flanking sets in a lesser position had belonged to Zulu warriors of lesser rank. The girl couldn't take her eyes off them.

"I believe I know whet you are thinking." Johanna said, gently. Then she said, in basic Zulu with a few grammatical errors:

"My kraal. You are here guest. Be at ease. A guest is family while she is guest."

Johanna switched back to Morporkian.

"I'm only the Red Death on a different continent. Where different rules epply. Would you care to take the head-dress off? Looks uncomfortable."

Connie gratefully shed the Cultural head-dress; Zulu pupils were permitted to wear ostrich feathers in School and house colours, rather than the blonkett. As _anything_ was better than the blonkett, Connie had gone along with this. Claude the butler smoothly gathered it up to hang somewhere.

Famke made the introductions. The older red-haired girl who sat in a chair, engulfed by two massive cats, had said nothing and was watching them attentively. This turned out to be Rebecka, the Witch. The sheer size of the cats probably explained why she _couldn't_ stand up.

"Acerian Maine Coons." Bekki explained. "They've been around since I was tiny. Getting on for ten years old, now."

Connie accepted this. Witches and cats went together, somehow. Then she saw the dogs and jumped. Hadn't Doctor Smith-Rhodes ever heard of _normal_ -sized pets? And they were...

"It's okay." Bekki said. "They've been around black people since they were puppies. They know how to behave. We trained them to just see _people_."

Klipdrift and Rooibuis ambled over to check out the new people. Connie, who had heard there were darker reasons why White Howondalandians preferred very big dogs, was infinitely relieved to be merely sniffed and drooled over.

"We can take them out for a walk, if you like." Famke said. "Has to be a _long_ walk, though."

"Before thet." Johanna said. "We'll have a drink, first. But na-now, I need a little word."

She reached out and stroked the fading bruise on her daughter's cheek. She frowned. "I could have sworn this was bigger and more swollen this morning."

"Bekki did something, mum. Not sure what. Witch stuff."

Johanna frowned at her older daughter. It had overtures of _Wait till your father gets home._ Bekki, who knew this meant _I am not qualified to deal with things of magic, so I'm leaving this to your father to deal with,_ smiled back.

"Basic healing magic, mum. I took the pain and swelling away. Witch skill."

"It was really cool, the way you put it into that spear-head, and it glowed red for a second or two!" Famke agreed. Bekki winced. Mum didn't like anyone tampering with her weapons. But that hot little ball of pain and discomfort she'd extracted from her sister's face had needed to go _somewhere_... and a large handy nearby piece of metal had been ideal.

"Ah-huh. Which spear?" Mum asked.

Bekki pointed one out. Mum walked over and tested the point and the edge, running a finger down the bladed edge.

"Ok. No herm done." she said. Then she smiled at Famke again. Students at the Guild School knew that pleasant smile. And what it meant.

"I hear you've been getting into fights." Johanna said, sternly. "You have the evidence on your face."

She paused to let this sink in.

"Did that hurt, meisie? I hope it did." Johanna shook her head. "End aren't you lucky your sister knows something ebout healing magic? _Heksenheid_?"

She allowed another long silence to happen. Connie, who hadn't been in the fight, felt relieved. She noted Thora was looking a little bit uneasy too. Thora _had_ been in the fight. And the staffroom grapevine would have kept Doctor Smith-Rhodes _very_ much informed.

Johanna shook her head again. She was now a schoolteacher confronted by underachieving pupils.

" _Inettention_ , Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." she said. "Hed you been doing thet _properly_ , you would not have ellowed one of your assailants to get so close thet they could merk your face. A shocking lepse. However. I _do_ note thet you took a hard punch, but you remained on your feet end were able to cerry on fighting. You got the better of two boys who were several years older end stronger than you. Your grendfather would approve, by the way. I em eware you have not yet been in any of my _formal_ clesses yet. So I propose, by way of punishment, thet while we are waiting for our evening meal, I take you out onto the beck lawn end I teach you how to spot for multiple threats in a close fight, end how to block punches."

She smiled at the two others.

"You two also, Miss Bryttasdottir. Miss Muthelezi. Rebecka, there is always more to learn? Dankie."

Bekki sighed, dislodged two reluctant cats, and followed her mother and the others out into the cold garden. She wished she'd opted to tag along when Miss Lansbury from the School had called by earlier, and had eventually asked if she could take Ruth to the Art Gallery. Gillian Lansbury was fascinated with Ruth. And Ruth liked her: she seemed to realise she was getting a private tutor in Art. Ruth had jumped at the chance. Mum, without actually saying so, found the Art Gallery to be somewhat tedious and irrelevant to her. Famke just saw a bunch of sad boring old paintings and statues. Dad had tried, but had realised he didn't know nearly enough about art. Shauna tended to make loud comments about male nudes that either emphasised how optimistic the artist was, or else "showing off, is he?"

Gillian, taken with the youngest daughter's budding talent for creativity, had volunteered. She'd even said to Mum, only semi-jokingly, if she could take this one away and adopt her or something? And Mum had replied _this one, I want to keep. You do get Famke, however. For seven years. You are welcome to Famke._

Bekki had opted to stay indoors, in the warm, and be lazy, with nobody making demands on her time or just being demanding. _Hah_ , on both counts. And now she was watching Mum demonstrating blocks, stops, and counter-moves in street-fighting and generally roughing it. It was impressive and it was a master-class. She also sensed Mum was going easy on what was, after all, a group of eleven-year old girls.

"I do not normally begin teaching these skills until the first year of the Bleck." Mum said. She stepped aside. Connie, eyes widening, overbalanced as she tried to attack a Johanna who simply wasn't standing there any more. Mum helped things along with a slight push that sent the Zulu girl sprawling.

"Roll. Recover. Get on your feet egain." Mum said. She placed a booted foot gently on Connie's shoulder. "End never get up in the same place where you went down. Important. Or the person who put you down – nice try, miss Bryttasdottir – will know _exectly_ where to kick or stemp."

Unorthodox Fighting Skills 101. Bekki deliberately refrained from mixing it, and just watched. Thora had gone face-down in the grass this time. But she got up again. And every time Famke got close to landing a blow on Mum, she got stopped, countered, blocked or thrown. Bekki suspected this was being done to make a point. She sighed, and readied herself to provide a bit more basic healing and, she thought, pain relief, The gardener had left an axe in the flat stump over there where he chopped firewood... perfect for somewhere to dump any pain and discomfort...

Bekki looked round.

"hi, Ruthie!" she said. Her little sister ran to her then looked, wide-eyed, at the fight on the lawn. Bekki sighed.

"Nothing to worry about." she said, soothingly. "Just Mum being Mum. And Famke being Famke. _And_ Famke's friends. Being themselves. Hi, Gillian. Nice trip?"

Gillian Lansbury looked on, dissaprovingly.

"That's _all_ we need." she said. "Famke being taught to fight _better_. Talk about running repeating crossbows to the Apaches!"

"We got to see the Pouter collection!" Ruth said, excited. "And the De Vuilnis. _And_ the van der Meerkats!"

Bekki, who couldn't tell a Pouter from a Vuilnis, nodded encouragingly.

"Thet will do for now." Johanna said, concluding her informal training. "Good blocks, good kicks, Miss Muthelezi. Well done. Miss Bryttasdottir. Good egression. But it's not elways a good idea to charge in screaming a war-cry in Dwarfish. You are signalling your intent to one who knows how to read it. End. Famke. Perhaps _now_ you will not be so incautious es to let Michael Venturi, of ell people, close enough to mark your face?"

She looked round.

"Hi, Gillian." She said.

"And that's delivering a rebuke, is it?" Gillian said, pointedly.

Johanna smiled.

"Drinks, I think."

The evening meal was a pleasant family and friends affair. Dad had come home from the university and the whole family, plus a few friends, dined together.

And shortly after dessert, the evening newspapers arrived.

"Dankie." Johanna said, as Claude stepped back with what Bekki thought was a slightly more expectant look on his face than normal.

"Excuse me while I scen the headlines. Better to be informed." she said.

"Can I have the Arts pages?" Gillian Lansbury asked. "I'd like to see what Tuppence Swivel had to say about the current exhibition."

Bekki watched her mum swiftly speed-read the newspaper, turning pages quickly. Then she stopped on one page and read it for a long time. Her face went to stone, unreadable.

She closed the paper with great care, folded it, and laid it on the table in a deliberately slow, painstaking way.

"Excuse me." She said, to nobody in particular, and stalked out of the room. The door closed quietly behind her.

"Johanna?" Ponder said. He was unheeded. "Oh, hell." he added, quietly.

"Who's died?" Famke asked, curiously.

"Tactful." Bekki said. "As always."

"I don't think it's that." their father said. "Your mother would be genuinely sad if somebody she knew had died. That..." and Ponder Stibbons took a deep breath... "was _rage_. I've only ever _once_ seen her that angry. When she thought somebody had killed Mariella."

Gilllian Lansbury nodded. She looked at the Assassin schoolgirls.

"Good lesson. If you _ever_ see Doctor Smith-Rhodes in that mood, get out of the way. _Fast._ Do you know how much paperwork I've got to fill in if a Raven House girl dies? It isn't funny."

"Will you go and talk to her, Dad?" Bekki asked. Her father shook his head.

"Not until I've got an idea as to what worked her up." he replied. "And I know it's in the evening newspaper somewhere."

He picked up the copy of the _**Ankh-Morpork Times**_.

"She got a few pages in. And then stopped dead. Something she saw..."

Bekki walked round the table to join her father as he scanned pages. She read over his shoulder. After a while she put a hand on his shoulder and said "Dad..."

 _ **The Patrician's New Year's Honours List**_

 _ **As we stand on the threshold of the Year of the Justifiably Defensive Lobster, the Patrician, Lord Havelock Venturi, has seen fit to honour the great and the good of the City with social promotions and advancements...**_

Ponder read on, silently.

"Well. It might have been nice to have been asked. You know. Advance warning." he said.

 _ **The wizards of Unseen University have long eschewed earthly honours, arguing that the richness of their profession is to be found in other realms and the pure advance of knowledge is its own reward. However, Lord Vetinari has noted that the Arch-Chancellor is a valued member of the Ctiy Council and his opinions are always listened to. His Lordship points out that the City Council is made up of the Old Lords, the Lords Temporal, such as Lord Eorle, Lady Rust,Lord Selachii, Lord Venturi, and others. The high Priests of Io and Offler also have the right to call themselves Lords Spiritual and His Lordship notes they are also present at Council meetings.**_

 _ **Therefore, Arch-Chancellor Mustrum Ridcully becomes a Lord in his own right. Afterthe erxample of the Lords Temporal and the Lords Spiritual, the Patrician is firmly of the opinion that there should be such a thing as the Lord Ephemeral. It is also right and proper that the Vice-Chancellor of Unseen University should be advanced to knighthood, in recognition of Services to Magic and Technomancy...**_

Her father put the paper down, wearily.

"Sir Ponder Stibbons, Baronet. KCOSB." he said. "What the Hell is a KCOSB?"

Gillian Lansbury said "Oh, I know. Knight Companion of The Suspender Belt. Apparently an old King of Ankh-Morpork with some, er, specialised interests, created the Order for a group of his close friends who also liked to.. well, you know. You get a sash and a medal too, Ponder. Apparently it's got a lumberjack's axe and saw on it."

Ponder winced.

"So that's it." he said.

Bekki squeezed his shoulder.

"That's not all, Dad. Look."

She pointed him down the alphabetical list of honours by Guilds. And just after the Artisans were the Assassins...

"For services to agricultural and zoological science. Doctor Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons is invested with the title of Dame of the Ankh-Morporkian Empire. _Oh, hell_..."

Apparently Mum is entitled, as she got Ankh-Morporkian citizenship the moment she married you." Bekki said.

"Dad's a Knight and Mum's a Dame?" Famke said, excitedly.

"Yes. They've got Mum both ways. As wife of Sir Ponder, she becomes a Lady." Bekki said. "And a Dame is a knighthood for women."

Bekki pulled up as a horrible thought occured to her.

"Dad. Becoming a knight means kneeling down ,while somebody puts a sword near your throat." she said. "Can you imagine Mum letting _somebody else_...you know... near her actual neck?"

Ponder grinned.

Then he frowned again.

"Your mother is now a Lady _and_ a Dame." he said. "I wonder what she's done or said to annoy Vetinari recently?"

"Good point." Gillian Lansbury said. "Admittedly, this is only an entry-level Ladyship. Sort of a lance-corporal Ladyship. But Ponder's got a Baronetcy. That is heriditary. It means three people in this room are now Honourables. Even Famke. And the oldest Honourable Miss, under the new rules, inherits the title. Eventually."

Bekki felt an ice-cold flush. Implications descended on her.

"Live long, Dad." she said. "What am I ever going to do with a Damehood?"

Then Second Thoughts kicked in. She looked down the page, at the section which read

 **The Patrician also notes that there is the long-overlooked issue concerning the original Smith-Rhodes baronetcy, conferred on Cecil Smith-Rhodes, the Sto Plains-born adventurer, who added the new land of Smith-Rhodesia to the largely now defunct Ankh-Morporkian Empire, over a century ago. Sir Cecil was made a baronet, on what was then the clear understanding that this would pass to his oldest son Charles in the fullness of time. Charles Smith-Rhodes, however, threw in his lot with the rebel side during the Boor War, who fought - sucessfully - for the overthrowing of Ankh-Morporkian power in Howondaland, and who set up a Boer Republiek** _(check spelling? - WdW)_ **which eschewed titles of rank and nobility. Charles did not take up the baronetcy and nor did his direct descendants. The College of Heralds has noticed that this is an anomaly and you cannot have an unclaimed title flapping around, as it looks untidy. They have petitioned the Patrician to do something about it. The current heir to the Smith-Rhodes baronetcy, Mr Andreas "Barbarossa" Smith-Rhodes, of Piemberg, Rimwards Howondaland, has been heard to say he wants none of the bloody thing, as it looks wrong for people living in a a bloody Republic, are you hearing me? Which. under the laws of heriditary peerage. means it now passes by right of primogeniture to his oldest child. There is speculation as to this being another reason why the Patrician has conferred Damehood on Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons of Nap Hill, Ankh. Just to make sure.**

Dad? I know you've _got_ to go and talk to Mum sometime. But. Please let me go in there first? I think I know what to do."

Bekki steeled herself. She knew Mum would have retreated to her private study.

 _ **To be continued**_

 **(1)** Clearly and self-evidently covered under the word "Deportment". After all, the Concordat clearly states that young men will be taught to compose themselves appropriately in each and every social situation and will be schooled in _all_ the social skills fitting to a young gentleman... **  
**

 **(2)** Igorina had cheerfully said "Brace yourself. This is going to hurt." She wasn't wrong.

 **(2)** Thora's parents had said "I know it's a bit big for her. But she'll grow into it."

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Discovered a version of the Proclaimers'** _ **Five Hundred Miles**_ **sung in Afrikaans by musical jokester Robbie Wessels. This makes me very happy indeed. It is truly an anthem for the Howondalander Feegle who have set up home in the Smith-Rhodes' family lands, the Red Earth Clan, the Rooirocker Feegle. Google You-Tube for** _ **O' Die Bokke**_ **. This sounds** _ **made**_ **for immigrant Feegle in a new land.**

 **History throws up fun sidebars. We all know the last war between Britain and the USA was in 1812. It was averted in 1861-65 when the rest of the world collectively decided – do not take sides, and be prepared to negotiate with whoever wins. But. It nearly happened in 1859 with "the Pig War", provoked by an American farmer on the San Juan Islands near Vancouver, Canada, disputed between the US and Britain (The most recent treaty between the US and UK regarding that region clearly marked the border between America and Canada on the mainland, but was vague as to who owned which coastal islands near said border, and where the territorial waters of the islands owned by one side ended, and the territorial waters of the islands owned by the other side began), who killed a British-owned pig rooting in his garden. British authorities tried to arrest the farmer, and the American community on the islands called for US protection. When both sides realized that it was insane to "involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig," in the words of the British commander on the scene, they set up a joint military presence and called in German mediation. (Which eventually decided in favour of the Americans.)**

 **Also... British goverments have deliberately given honorary award to "colonial" people prominent in fighting British rule, knowing this would cause a lot of suspicion in their own countries - or otherwise to embarras them at home.. Vetinari's reasons for Dame-ing Johanna may soon become clear...**

 **Bonus text from Draft One – you do not need to read this bit. But if you insist…**

 _ **We begin in Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork, around Hogswatch...**_

There was an evening party for family and close friends of the Smith-Rhodes-Stibbonses. Bekki realised they were mainly friends of Mum and Dad, but she and Famke were allowed to have friends over to make it more of a family thing. Bekki realised there was another advantage to not having been sent to the Assassins' School: the friends of Famke's who had come over were apprehensive about being in a room that had a goodly number of their teachers in it. Bekki and Shauna didn't have to bother about that.

The group of mainly student Assassins therefore huddled as far away from the group of off-duty teachers as they could get. Bekki glanced down to a very prominent axe with a dwarf attached. Thora Bryttasdottir had diffidently asked, on arriving, if, err, she needed to check the axe in or anything. Mum had been gracious about it and said that as long as she didn't actually try to _use_ it on anyone, she could wear it. Some things, after all, were culturally understood. The axe remained in its holster, slung over Thora's back. As Thora was a very young Dwarf girl, the effect was one of a self-propelled weapon that partially concealed its carrier. It took some getting used to.

"Lots of open-carry going on here." Manni de Lapoignard remarked. "Show me one of our teachers who _isn't_ carrying a weapon."

"Maman, for one." agreed his brother Pippi. Student Assassins were not normally permitted to carry weapons. It had been another of Cassandra Venturi's ill-concealed grouses that the damn rat-eating Dwarf gets to carry an axe, and I'm not allowed even a _dagger_! This, as Famke remarked, had also precipitated a few words in the dorm.

"You know." Manni said, thoughtfully, "You would have thought that the Venturis would have _learnt_ by now. Especially Parsifal. Beccs punched him in the nose when we were all _three."_

Famke looked up at her older sister with what Bekki recognised as respect.

"You _did_?" Famke said, excitedly. "You never told _me_ that!"

"I don't tell you _everything._ " Bekki said, mildly.

"Well, you can tell me _now_!" Famke insisted. "I hope it really _hurt_!"

"It did make my knuckles sting..." Bekki admitted.

"Anyway." Manni continued. "Davvie got one over on him, in her own way. With the weed that gives you the sh... _runs_. Takes after her mother, evidently."

Davinia Bellamy, Junior, blushed slightly at the praise. Her mother, standing at the other side of the room and apparently in deep conversation with Monsieur Le Balouard, turned her head slightly, just far enough to convey the impression "we _are_ listening, you know."

Le Balouard spared a slight smile to the Lapoignard brothers, then resumed his conversation with Doctor Bellamy.

"And, anyway. Having not learnt a thing after mixing it with Beccs, he annoys Kay. Who goes all Tykebomb in his face." Manni continued.

"Venturis." Pippi said, shrugging. "What can you say? Too well-bred to learn."

"Most importantly, that you do not annoy Smith-Rhodes sisters." Manni agreed. "And especially not the one who leaps up, grabs you by the collar, and smashes her forehead into your nose."

"Really impressive." Davvie said. She smiled down at Famke.

Famke grinned slightly. Shauna O'Hennigan put an arm around her.

"I taught her that!" she said. "The Dimwell Equaliser."

"Confers an advantage." Manny agreed. "The Venturis scorn lowly gutter fighting. So no defence when it gets used on them."

"Whatever." Shauna said. "I'm feckin' proud of you, Kay!"

"Had another weapon, too." Famke said. "An unexploded dwarf."

She indicated Thora.

"Glad to help." Thora said. She then added a few spiky words in Dwarfish and attached them to the name "Venturi".

"Can I write some of that down?" Shauna said, hopefully. She collected new swear words all the time, viewing it as a useful hobby.

"Not in front of Ruthie." Bekki said, firmly. They looked round. Ruthie was sitting with a sketch-pad, pencils and Miss Gillian Lansbury, who seemed completely fascinated with her. Now and again there was a consultation over the paper.

"Ah, she's alright." Shauna said. "What do you call her? _Artsy - F.._."

"Not where she can hear it!" Davvie said, urgently. Famke nodded urgent assent. Miss Lansbury was the Guild School's art mistress; she was also Famke's Housemistress. Famke, while she pushed hard at the edges to see what gave, wasn't completely reckless: the nickname _Artsy-Fartsy_ for their art teacher was not one she'd care to use if Miss Lansbury was within hearing range. And her teachers had very good hearing.

Phillipe-Henri de Lapoignard, known as Piuppi to his friends, lowered his voice.

"Listen. After the fight, Monsieur called Parisfal and Michael to his office. We _all_ heard. Monsieur Le B doesn't lose his temper often. But he _really_ ripped into Parsifal and his brother."

Pippi then performed a very good impression of his Housemaster. _You pair of idiots, you pair of arrogant prize fools, what on Disc do you think you were doing? You are a young man of sixteen and you, two years younger. Do you think, even in your wildest dreams, that it was right or proper or seemly to try to pick a fight with a girl of eleven who is not even half your size? To go to that child and to offer her violence? What do you think you were doing? This reflects badly on the School, it reflects badly on this House, and above all it reflects badly on me! And the fact she knocked one of you down and left the other staggering in circles and seeing stars – well, you wish to be Assassins. You both have a long way to go, gentlemen!_

"And then he got into talking about overconfidence and that they evidently hadn't stopped to reflect on whose daughter she is. And who her aunt and her cousin are. _Not because this girl gets improper favouritism because of who she is related to. But think, you pair of imbeciles! This Guild believes in family lines, and with good reason. Assassination runs in families. Has it never occured to you that young miss Smith-Rhodes Stibbons has undoubtedly received a lot of informal Assassin training before even stepping foot in this School? As well as being her mother's daughter? Get out of my sight. Idiots."_

Famke and the rest grinned.

M Le Balouard turned his head, looking slightly amused.

" _J'écoutais chaque mot, mes garçons!_ _"_ he said. He did not sound angry. "And I admit I was shouting so loudly that a private conversation ceased to be private. I cannot blame you, and indeed the whole of the House, for overhearing. _"_

"Also, a very good impersonation of my voice and demeanour. Full marks, mon Chevalier de Lapoignard."

Pippi smiled with relief. Monsieur LeB was alright, when you got to know him, and here, out of hours where it was understood, the teachers seemed willling to give a little leeway.

M Le Balouard excused himself, and turned to appraise Famke. He observed her quietly for a few moments. Famke noted that her mother was observing, watching everything, but not intervening. This was _teacher stuff. Why does Mum have to invite them home? she thought,_ trying to supress an indignant sense of this not being entirely _fair,_ somehow.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." he said, at length. He took a reflective sip of a tall drink in a long glass, which had a cocktail cherry in it. Apparently he liked it shaken and not stirred. Claude had grasped this immediately.

"Your tutor in Quirmian is Madame de Badin-Boucher. She tells me you have a good quick mind, and already appreciate something of our language. Still, that must come of being a neighbour to the Comptesse de Lapoignard, peut-être ? And you are not old or advanced enough for other classes I teach, therefore you have not been in any of my classrooms. Yet. But that time will come, I am sure."

He nodded down at her.

"I'm sure your mother has had things to say concerning a recent regrettable situation. That is not my place, and I'm happy to leave it to her. Do you know, I believe I shall be watching your scholastic career with interest!"


	27. Kunswaardering

_**Strandpiel 27:**_ _ **Kunswaardering – Art Appreciation**_

 _ **Here we are again... yet another chapter.**_

 _ **Back to it. Doing what I usually do when I know what I want to write and even have it plotted. But still feeling blocked. Browsed TvTropes for a while to absorb possible directions and ideas. Applied time-wasting. Works a treat...**_

 _ **As always, will come back to review, revise and maybe add footnotes. Bekkki will be back in Lancre next chapter - Hogswatch is over! This one has a lot more to say about Ruth S-R-S - she's fixed more in my mind now as a character. Third tidying. Keep spotting damn typos.  
**_

Dad? I know you've _got_ to go and talk to Mum sometime. But. Please let me go in there first? I think I know what to do."

Bekki steeled herself. She knew Mum would have retreated to her private study.

She left the room, and went to where her mother had her own private study, for School and academic work. She paused at the door. Somebody else had got there first... Bekki paused and listened, reassuring herself that she wasn't being intrusive or noisy. Well, she _was_. But she was a witch. It was part of the job description...

Johanna closed the door firmly and sat at her desk, gently twanging with anger and indignation. She was aware she still had guests and had to go back to them at some point. It was rude, otherwise. But not in this mood. She started doing calming breaths, the deep regular Zen breathing that her colleague Koukouchou-san **(1)** taught, so as to refocus and to make the mind an oasis of calm in the middle of turmoil. It helped.

 _Bloody, bloody, Vetinari. But what do I do about this?_

Johanna picked up the Device, one of several that sat on her desk. It was made of glass and leather, and was about three feet long. They were manufactured in a variety of sizes to accomodate various sorts of male animals. Early on, when seeing the potential of these things, she had gone to Scrope Tuttle, who she knew to be a gifted leatherworker and honest enough in his way, a man who had a real genius, if a slightly specialised one, for odd devices made from leather and hide. She knew, from times where her colleague Alice Band had imparted Too Much Information, that Tuttle was entirely at home with things of this size, shape, and intended to relate to the same specific physical region. This was just a different application, and it needed a mind like Tuttle's to handle the specifics of design and manufacture. The specialist leatherworker, intrigued, had come into the project early as her principal designer. She had cut him a small but appropriate percentage of sales for his input, and had got him working with an equally specialised glassblower she had recruited, by listening to other Artisans making dissapproving and somewhat morally scandalised noises. **(2)**

And the Smith-Rhodes Device was selling really, really, well, together with the associated tecnology for, err, safely and hygenically collecting, storing and transferring the... _product_. She even had local agents as far away as Fourecks, the Foggy Islands (model two, designed for sheep and ovine creatures, was a big seller there), and in her own Rimwards Howondaland.

The Device was, she realised, making her potentially very rich indeed. She couldn't easily remember the last time she'd accepted any sort of Guild contract; there was no need at all now. The patents and contracts she'd drawn up with Mr Thunderbolt secured her intellectual and physical property rights and the future, financially speaking, looked very sound indeed. She had other ideas, and Ponder was getting a good cut from ideas turned into practical things in the Thaumatalogical Park.

 _Services to agricultural and zoological science..._

Johanna winced.

 _Ag, I should have seen this coming!_

Again, she tried to backtrack to any occassion where her usual candour might have irritated Vetinari. There had been one occassion at the Palace, not too long ago, a couple of weeks ago, in fact, where the Patrician had warmly complimented her on a concept that looked set to improve the general quality of stock among farm animals. Vetinari had noted that his information was that two Pegasus mares were now gravid via the intervention of this Device, and, as the – _active component_ – was collected from a Pegasus stallion via this Device, the resulting foals were almost certain to be the rare and elusive wingèd horses. And thus of extreme value to this City.

Johanna smiled, reflecting that she'd get some sort of a bounty for this.

Vetinari had reflected that he'd heard Johanna's daughter had sold the idea to Mr Hobley and demonstrated the ubiquity of the Device. Give her my thanks.

"Ja, Rebecka did very well..."

She was interrupted by a snort of braying laughter from Lady Regina Rust, present at a small City Council assembly because, well, the Old Lords always were. Johanna turned.

"I'd be _ashamed_ , if I made my daughter do for a living something the Seamstresses' Guild would put on as a specialised animal act!"

The other Old Lords joined in the laughter. Johanna took a deep breath.

"Point taken, my Lady." Johanna said, with great deliberate calm. She smiled slightly at Lady Rust.

"The purpose of the Device is to improve end to enhance the quality of livestock elong their bloodlines." she had said. "Otherwise those bloodlines become ettenuated, inbred, end _deteriorate._ You end up with sickly, scrubby, mean creatures, possibly brain-impaired end of evil temper, who are unfit for purpose."

Johanna paused for just long enough.

"End how _are_ your sisters, Deborah end Lucinda, who I sought to educate?" she asked.

She left it for just long enough for the counter-insult, not specifically said, but very definitely implied, to sink in. The Duke of Ankh, who despite being a noble was one of the best people she knew, saw it first and burst out laughing, adding a "Good one, Johanna!"

Vetinari had glanced at Lady Rust, who looked as if she had been slapped, then mildly said, turning his gaze back to Johanna,

"A good point, Doctor Smith-Rhodes. Perhaps there is a case to be made for improving the general stock of titled and noble people in this City. I shall give it some consideration."

He nodded to the Duke of Ankh.

"Improving the stock of nobility with the occassional, shall we say, _helping hand_ , has certainly worked in the recent past."

Sam Vimes looked sober and refective again, the smile gone from his face.

Johana then gave a brief report on how sales of the Device were going in various areas, and how in faraway places like Howondaland and Fourecks, she had recruited locally based Assassins, graduates of hers, to have a place in its local management and ensure the accounts were kept totally honest. Her sister Mariella was keeping an eye on sales in Howondaland, for instance. Just to avert any misunderstanding. She hoped soon to have a manufacturing plant set up in the town of Piemberg, with her father on the management board, to service the local market. And stud fees plus the speed of international travel, say via the Pegasus Service, meant that a prized stud bull in the Shires could become the proud father of calves several thousand miles away – without ever leaving his own field near Ankh-Morpork. She was looking into this, an arrangement where the farmer got the stud fee, less a fair percentage to herself for facilitating, and thus Ankh-Morpork could influence the quality of agricultural livestock around the world.

Vetinari had taken this point, genially approved of the enterprise involved, and said that in these circumstances the growing Pegasus Service could ensure same-day delivery. Less a small and appropriate sum in Export Tax payable to the City, of course.

Johanna had been thanked and had been dismissed. Leaving with a nod and a smile to a fuming Lady Regina Rust, now completely and impotently aware she was the butt of a joke.

And now, sitting in her office, those words came back to haunt her, about there being _a case to be made for improving the general stock of titled and noble people in this City_. Vetinari had also said _I shall give it some consideration._

And, damn the man, he _had_.

And that thing about the Smith-Rhodes baronetcy... according to the rules of the business, it _did_ descend down her line of the family, from firstborn to firstborn.

 _Damn, Damn. Damn. Why couldn't it go down Uncle Charles' side? At least_ **he'd** _have the bloody knighthood, and he'd actively welcome it. And Sir Julian Smith-Rhodes, ultimately, would not be a bad thing at all..._

A thought occured to her, and she held it for consideration later.

There was a knock on the door. She knew the knock. Only one sort of person knocked like that. She took a deep breath.

"Come in, Claude."

Her butler entered with smooth grace, manipulating a tea-tray with ease. He set this down on a side-table.

"I took the liberty, my... _madam_." he said. "At times of difficulty, a hot soothing drink with sugar is reccomended. Rooibuis, as Madam likes it."

Johanna noted the slip, but said nothing about it.

" _Three_ cups, Claude?" she enquired, accepting one with thanks.

"I anticipate other members of the family are keen to speak with you, Madam." he said. "Sir Ponder... that is, _the Professor_... for one. And one other, in her own time."

Johanna nodded. She tried not to let her eyes narrow _too_ much at the reminder she was now married to a Knight. _Which makes me a..._

"I understand other Assassins were honoured with social preferment." Claude said. "Miss Sanderson-Reeves, for instance. She is now Dame Joan. As Deputy Guild Mistress, this was considered appropriate. No doubt, should she succeed Lord Downey, the role of Guild Mistress would confer a peerage on her, as is customary."

"End your point is, Claude?" Johanna asked. She _really_ wanted to be on her own. But she recognised her butler was absolutely loyal, had been part of the family for nearly sixteen years, had seen the birth and upbringing of her three children, and was a man she should listen to.

"If I may speak frankly, my lady?" he said. Johanna winced. _Don't say anything. He's a butler. Of course I can never be just "Madam" to him again. Butlers do not think like that._

"When your employer – in this case, _both_ my employers – are advanced in social rank, their servants are made happier. It is a source of prestige to us. It is seen as a measure of the success and the vitality of the household, of which we are part. The others are equally joyous for you. They too know what it means."

Johanna nodded.

"I know. It's not just ebout me. Or Ponder."

"Indeed, my Lady." Claude said, with urgency. "I can now go to the Guild of Butlers, Gentlemen's Gentlemen and Senior Domestic Servants, as the butler to a Knight and a Dame, not merely as servant to a sir and a madam. Please permit me that moment of selfishness."

"Understood, Claude." she said. _They arrived here as black Howondalandians, drafted from townships and small tribes, to serve as indentured servants to White Howondalandians, the Boys and the House-Girls to the baas-lady. Expected to be nothing more than they were at Home. Just – the blecks. But Ankh-Morpork changes everybody. They've assimilated. Gone native._

"And also consider, My Lady. The three young ladies are also advanced, by default. I know from speaking to my peer Mr Carter, who is Butler to Lord Downey and the Dark Council, that social rank is highly valued at the Guild. Miss Famke will return next term as The Honourable Miss Famke. A small step in the rankings, but one which the Guild will note. It may, if she is clever, as she undoubtedly is, be something she can turn to advantage."

Johanna nodded. Damn nobility. The Guild ran on the stuff. But useful for impressing people and getting a foot in certain doors behind which were impressionable people. She took a deep breath.

"Okay, Claude. Thenk you for being so open." She read the atmosphere and the local environment and sensed watchful anxiety nearby.

"Rebecka? You cen come in."

Bekki took her cue. Claude stood back and waited to be dismissed.

"Mum. We were starting to _worry_." she said.

"Over it now." Johanna said. "Time to cool down end think. Claude, could you?"

The butler stepped across the room and poured a second cup of tea.

"Thanks, Claude." Bekki said. She took her mother's hand.

"Just know, mum. They could make you High Grand Duchess Of Just About Everything and it wouldn't matter. There are still three of us out there who will only ever call you Mum."

There was a pause.

"Thenk you, Rebecka." her mother said.

"You know, mum. They've made you a Lady once and by the look of it, a Dame twice over. You can't wish it away. I don't think this is how these things work. I'm not sure, but if Lord Vetinari gives you a present, you can't send it back and say, the colour was wrong, or something. Or ask for the receipt so you can take it back to the shop. I get the idea he won't like that. So what do we do about it? I mean, does it give you any advantages, or something you could get from it?"

Johanna smiled slightly.

"Wellnow. My father's still alive, but he was able to renounce the knighthood and straightout say he doesn't want the thing. The rules mean it then hes to come to me, end es his oldest child, I have to put up. For now. It occurs to me that you'll turn eighteen in a little over two years?"

Johanna smiled at her oldest daughter.

"Well, I've got a spare Damehood I do not need. You were born in Enkh-Morpork, so it does not cerry the same beggege. Look out for a surprise eighteenth birthday present. Think of this, es your _oupa_ does, es a game of _pess-the-percel_."

Bekki blinked and sighed.

"Okay, mum. I suppose I asked for that. But I'm still going to be Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, Witch. That's the only title I need."

"Hold thet thought." Johanna said. "Es far es I'm concerned, the Dame thing is there end I cennot wish it eway. But the only title _I_ need is Doctor. End et Home, plain simple _mevrou Doktor_ will suffice. _Maar,_ Bekki, _Dame of the Enkh-Morporkian Empire_. En Empire our country fought like bloody Hell not to be a pert of. My encestors were pert of thet fight. This is Vetinari's idea of a good joke. It hes to be."

She paused, and considered.

"Bekki? When you speak to... _the encestors.._ next. Et least two of whom fought like bleddy Hell not to be a pert of any sort of Enkh-Morporkian Empire. Esk their opinions, will you? If I were to die end join them – end I hope thet is not _justnow_ – I do not want an Efterlife of snaark and bed jokes."

She grinned. Bekki realised this was something she could usefully do, and agreed. Her mother continued.

"But for justnow, I put up with it, I suppose. The Guild will not let me get eway with this."

Johanna sighed.

"End once, I winced et being called _ma'am_." she sighed. "Well, shell we go beck to our guests? Your father is probebly sitting there suffering egonies, poor man. Perheps I should reassure Sir Ponder."

They left the study together. Claude permitted himself a satisfied butlerian smile. He'd risen in rank and status too. It was a perk of the butler's life.

Life went on. The rest of the Hogswatch holidsay passed in a blur. Shauna's Gang reconvened with whoops of joy and delight. Johanna conceded that it was a shame she hadn't even thought of asking Gillian Lansbury to be Ruth's formal Godsmother, but the two of them had found each other later on, and Gillian appeared to be filling the space remarkably well.

"So – would you?" Johanna asked.

Gillian smiled happily.

"Johanna. Thank you. She is a talent. A real talent. With a natural gift. I'm so pleased to be a part of her life. Even if some of the things she's been doing with that... _special._.. paint Ponder got for her, Gods know from _where_ , can make my eyes water."

Johanna nodded sympathetically.

"Ja. The _special_ paint."

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons took after her father. Remarkably so. Where her two older sisters had their mother's dominant physical genes for startlingly red hair, freckles and pale skin, and where Famke appeared to be 98% her mother, with only a few little stray corners that people could look at and detect even the slightest Ponder Stibbons, Ruth was her father's daughter, with very little detectable Johanna.

She had the shock of hair so dark brown it was almost black. She was physically slight, almost frail, not destined to grow up to be overly tall, and was shy and reticent around people she did not know. She had big, startlingly big, brown eyes, and projected a helplessly waif-like attitude to the world. It followed on that people around her were tempted to be fiercely protective of her; her parents and older sisters loved her dearly and Famke, especially, gave the impression that anybody seeking to spoil her baby sister's day was going to feel a world of pain.

Ponder had tested her for magic, as he had Rebecka and Famke. Bekki and Famke had both gone off the scale, but at opposite ends.

With Ruth, the results had been more mixed and inconclusive. Ponder had conferred with Johanna.

"There's something there, Johanna, but I'm not sure what." he said. "It's threshold. Not quite strong enough to bar her from attending the Guild School..." he paused, reflectively. Johanna sighed.

"I know, Ponder." she said. "Would she be _happy_ there? I can see she isn't exactly Assassin material. I fear she would struggle. It might be better to find her somewhere else."

Ponder smiled gently. "What there is in Ruth comes out in flashes and spikes. Intermittent. It's not strong and constant as it was with Bekki. _Is_ with Bekki. And given her interests. The witches say magic can sublimate. Be used in the creative arts. Take Agnes Nitt, the singer. She's a witch, but she flares it off safely enough as a singer. I suspect that the magic Ruth has is sublimating. It comes out in her fingers. What happens in her mind turns into music, when she's at the piano. Or in the things she draws and paints."

They agreed just to watch her for now. Observe.

Ruth was clever, she was happy, she was imaginative, she was creative. But no sign of her turning that creative imagination into a familiar, as Bekki had done at the same age. Ponder had tried her out with _**Baby's First Grimoire**_ **.** Bekki had loved it and had gone on to do unexpected things with it. Famke had turned the pages dutifully enough, taken a little interest in the pictures, pushed it away, and never looked at it again.

Ruth had been interested in the pictures rather than the words and set about copying them onto blank drawing paper, as best she could. She had also asked why there was a blank space where Grindguts the Destroying Demon should be, on his page.

"Well, long story, love..." Grindguts had said, perching next to her. Ruth had jumped. After she had calmed down, Grindguts had offered to pose for drawings. The two had become friends, and Ruth, aged three and four, had started to turn out interesting artwork. Her class teacher at Seven-Handed Sek's reception class had had to be led away by kindly hands for a lie-down, after the class assignment to "draw all the members of my family" had been handed in.

Ruth Smith-Rhodes Stibbons had submitted a drawing of "Annaliese. Mummy. Daddy. Rbeceka. Fakme. Me, (Ruth). Caulde the Bluter. Eve and drthea and Blessign. Rooibois the dog. Klkipdrift the dgo. Pyn and Smart the cats. Grnidguts the Demon. Our goblins..."

It now hung on the wall at home, in the dining room. Dad had had to go to the School and apologise to the highly-strung Sister Concilia, a woman now half-convinced that little Ruth's head was going to spin through 360° and start spewing pea-green soup. The fact she drew demons so well... Mother Superior, who knew the Family, had spoken severely but kindly to her nun, and then sent her to a quiet convent in the backwoods, one where there were no sudden loud noises and a rule of silence applied, to "recuperate".

Ruth's creativity had grown with her years. Gillian Lansbury had taken notice of her paintings during a visit, when Ruth was five, then asked Johanna if she saw anything _unusual_ about her daughter's approach to art.

Johanna had said "No..." and looked puzzled for a second, then reflected that Gillian was a very experienced Art teacher. There had to be a reason for her colleague to raise this.

"Look at it, Johanna. She's painted a picture of a wood with an open meadow. Lots of horizon. But she's _painted the blue sky right down to the horizon where it meets the fields."_

"Okay? End?" Johanna had said, slightly bemused. Gillian shook her head.

"Johanna. How many children of five do that? The default position is to do the sky as a blue band at the top of the picture because, well, the sky is _above_ us, isn't it, over our heads. Then there's that vast acreage of white in between sky and grass. Straight away, without needing to be told, Ruth's taken her sky right down to the horizon. No white space. Anywhere. Have you any idea how _rare_ that is for a five-year-old? And she's done clouds. Not as the usual optimistic white blob. She's had a go at shading and highlighting in shades of grey. _Grey_ , Johanna, not white! Not brilliantly – she is five, after all – but it's not just colouring in, with one shade. And this tree. See it? It isn't the usual upright pole in brown. She's really trying to paint various shades of brown and grey, with a bit of green for moss. How many children that age look at things so closely?"

Asked her opinion, Ruth had shyly said "But I painted it that way because that's how it is. When you look outside, and you see the sky. It's above you, but when you look, it comes all the way down too, where it meets the sides. Am I doing something wrong?"

Gilian had smiled.

"No, not at all. I think you're painting what you see. Some of my students who are ten years older than you _still_ have a big problem with that, you'd be surprised. I'd really love to see some more of your paintings, Ruth!"

Johanna sighed and decided to let them get on with it. Free child-care was not to be scorned, after all. And Gillian needed a hobby – it might as well be one where she acted as a free art tutor to Ruth...

Oh, Ruth had her official Godsparents. She had Mustrum Ridcully and Joan Sanderson-Reeves as the locum grandparents in Ankh-Morpork. Both had accepted they'd be grandparents-by-proxy to all three of Johanna and Ponder's children. But Gillian was more than welcome: an adult who Ruth liked and trusted and who, most crucially, shared and could guide interests that nobody else in the family was properly fitted to help with. Gillian, after all, knew her Art. She taught it. Being allowed a gifted protegée to look after – well, any teacher would snap your hand off for one. And best of all, Gillian could keep an eye on her and remind her which paints were not nice if ingested by mouth. Johanna tended to worry about this. Gillian Lansbury, on the other hand, knew all about the detrimental effects of Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Cyan(ic) Green, Cinnabar Red and many, many more. In fact, a creatively specialised and imaginative application of this knowledge had led her to Assassination. Gillian had indeed used her paintbox creatively and imaginatively. Then the Guild had found out, offered her a Mature Students Course, and then a salaried position as Art Mistress.

And Ruth, at six, had read about how the Old Masters used egg yolk as a fixative. She had shyly asked Dorothea the cook how you separated white from yolk. Dorothea, as she had done with Bekki and Famke, had given the youngest girl some basic cooking lessons. Then Ruth had politely thanked her and dissappeared with a small bowl full of separated egg yolk. Dorothea had scratched her head in puzzlement and gone to advise the Professor.

Ponder had found Ruth in her bedroom, carefully experimenting with mixing the sort of coarse cheap pigment powder thought suitable for young children into measured doses of egg yolk, _just to get the mix right, Daddy. It doesn't last if you use it mixed with water only, it rubs off. This makes it last. And can I have some oil paints, please, Daddy, soon? I promise not to eat them. Mummy's worried about that. I know some are bad for you. Gillian says._

Gillian had come round, as she did once or twice a week, and supervised. She had been impressed.

"Egg tempera. Egg yolk used as a size. Really impressive!" she said. "Ruth, do you know you can use other things as sizing agents? That make the pigments _fast_ – that means hard and permanent – and of course it gives the final piece a silky, lustrous, sort of look."

Johanna let them get on with it.

There had been the day Ruth had, unusually for her, become het up, frustrated, and tearful. Ponder Stibbons went to console his daughter. He found her room strewn with many attempts to paint a rainbow. Some, he thought, were really quite good. She'd got the slightly see-through brilliant lustre so well on this one, in the standard seven colours...

"What's up, sweetheart?" he asked a tearful daughter. Then he held out the usual hostage to fortune. "Let's see if Daddy can make it better."

"Daddy." She said. "I can't get the colours right. I can't mix the colour I want."

"Oh, dear." Ponder said, sympathetically. He tried to remember the sort of art taught to eight year old boys. You blended colours to make other colours, didn't you? Can't be difficult...

"How can I paint properly, when there's one colour I just can't do?" Ruth wailed. "I can't buy it in the shops, Daddy. I try to describe it but they look really strangely at me!"

Then he looked at the paintings of the rainbow again. Those seven brilliant glowing colours were let down rather by the eighth, which had come out as a muddy-looking grey-blue-green. He blinked.

"Ruth..." he said, slowly. "how many colours do you see in the rainbow?"

"Eight, Daddy." Ruth said, after some silent counting. "Doesn't everybody?"

Ponder took a deep, deep, breath. Then he explained about the Octarine.

"Oh. So you can see it. Mummy can't. Bekki can see it. But Famke can't. If I can see it, Daddy, does it mean I'm magical?"

"This may be so." Ponder said, remembering the tests he'd run that indicated Ruth had a _little_ magic. He reflected that Alice Band could see into the octarine too. But that didn't make her a witch. Far from it.

"I think my magical little girl can see the Octarine because the magic makes her an artist." he said. "Art is your magic, Ruth."

He spent time with her, looking at other pictures she'd sketched and painted, and pointing out that she'd done well here. This is the way the octarine flickers and shifts, to people who aren't magical. They don't see the actual _colour_ , they see the _space_ where it is. It's the only way most people, including your mum and your sister Famke, get an inkling that the Octarine even exists, that we're not making it up. For now, why not try to paint and draw it like this? "And I agree it's a _shocking_ thing nobody does an octarine coloured paint..."

He eventually put Ruth to bed and waited for her to fall asleep. Ideas were forming in his head. He kissed her goodnight and went downstairs.

The next morning, he started looking down the rolls of Wizards in current residence at the University. He knew these were not complete, and by their very nature could never be complete. Unseen University wasn't that sort of place. _Ah well, I can ask around the Faculty..._ He had soon compiled a shortlist of likely candidates and their academic specialities. But, being prudent, he asked Mustrum Ridcully for his advice. Some older wizards in the furthest outliers could get prickly.

"Interestin' selection." Ridcully said. "And I discern a common theme here, lad. Might I ask what exactly you've got in mind?"

"It's to do with my daughter Ruth, sir."

Ridcully grunted, but looked more attentive.

"Who is, by default and accepted convention, me grand-daughter. So I can ask you the reason?"

"Yes, sir. We must have an Art Department here somewhere? After all, this University has got everything else."

Ponder quickly explained the reason. Ridcully smiled slightly.

"Is that all? Well, I recall about fifty years ago, lad, we had a Professor in the Theory and Practice of Art, "Gadget" Riley. Not sure if he's still around, but some of the fellows who were aware he had some odd habits called him Bridget, as I remember. His paintin's got locked away, for _very_ good reasons, as you will soon see. Librarian has them in his custody. Comin' for a walk?"

They set out for the Library.

"If that chap at the Royal Gallery got to hear of it, he'd want these. I know there are damn good reasons to keep 'em _away_ from the general public. Vetinari would agree. Look sharp, man!"

"Ook?"

"Need to see the Riley collection." Ridcully explained. "Young Stibbons has no idea they exist. Need to educate him."

"Oook..."

"I know. Wear dark glasses."

"Sir?"

"You'll see, lad. Thank you, that ape. Put these on. You'll see why."

The Librarian led them down to a lower floor in the Library. Ponder had never been here before. He had no idea the University had an Art Repository. Well. Statuary not on public display tended to gather dust in semi-forgotten cellars around the place. So he reasoned the same must apply to paintings. He'd just never bothered looking for them. There'd been no need before.

The Librarian unlocked a door to a large open space. It was lined with big open racks each containing pictures slotted in on their sides, often shrouded, with only the side edge visible. Ponder interestedly read the names on the racks underneath each group of pictures.

"R.U. Pickman." he read. He looked at a group of larger, thicker, artworks on a reinforced rack, again racked up with only their edges showing. They looked like carvings of some sort, low-relief sculptures rather than paintings, possibly shaped in clay. The edges and margins of ill-defined _shapes_ were visible. He read the name underneath these. "Henry A. Wilcox."

"Lad? Do _not_ pull any of those pictures out to look at them." Ridcully said, urgently. "I mean it. Important."

"Oook!"said the Librarian, nodding urgent agreement.

Ponder restrained a thought in his mind that was saying "One little look...", and moved on. There was a locked box on another rack simply labelled "Ghatian Wallpaper sample. DO NOT OPEN, We mean this." He passed this too. Another sealed box was also labelled "Acerian yellow wallpaper, five rolls. STRICTLY NOT TO BE OPENED."

"Here we are. G.B. Riley. Got the dark glasses on, lad? Good..."

Ridcully pulled a painting free. He brught it into the light with a flourish.

"Ugggh." said Ponder.

The picture tormented the eyes. Regular lines and curves, well-crafted abstract shapes... but in clashing primary colours. Trying to follow the logic of the lines and the twists and turns made his head ache. He suspected other rules of perspective applied here. That somehow there were a lot more dimensions going on here than the accepted two. There was a brilliant mind here, yes. But the sort of brilliance you'd run away from if you met it in the street. He looked away. Ridcully hauled a second painting into the light. It was as warped a piece of genius as the first. The lines and curves and regular twists and turns seemed to hang in the air. It was the sort of Art that would rip the eyes out of your head and never give them back, keeping them as souvenirs in a glass jar full of formeldehyde on a shelf in a dark cellar somewhere.

Then he blinked.

"Sir?" he said. "That shouldn't be happening. I mean, where did Riley buy his paint?"

Ridcully grinned.

"He was an old-time artist, lad. He made his own. From his own recipes. Ground his own pigments. Not much call for it, now you can go into an artists' supply shop and buy yer own. But I hear there's a clever woman at the Assassins' Guild who's rediscovered how to do it. Made her name on that."

"Gillian Lansbury..." Ponder breathed.

"Friend of Johanna's. Dead keen on bringing yer talented little girl along. The little girl who's frettin' because she can't get octarine paint anywhere. Well. Riley managed it."

"So I can see." Ponder said. He paused.

"Sir?"

"Yes, lad?"

"Put it away? Please?"

The eye-tormenting picture, with its octarine paint, the paint that made the design flow and float into more dimensions than a flat piece of canvas stretched over a frame could possibly hold, was reslotted into the rack. Ponder breathed with relief.

Ridcully patted him on the shoulder.

"Seen enough? Now let's go to the Stacks and dig out Riley's personal effects, shall we?"

The Stacks was the part of the library that served as the repository for the notes, writings and relevant professional effects of long-gone Wizards. The librarian led them in a search for an hour or so until they found, in the Recent R's, the effects of G.B. Riley, former Emeritus Professor of Experimental Art. Ridcully opened a large cardboard box.

"Me memory still works, then." he said. "Knew it'd be in here." He withdrew three large tubes of squeezy artists' paint, in metal toothpaste-like tubes.

"Octarine paint, lad. Give this to the little girl, with her grandfather's blessin'. Don't worry, it's stable. Lasts, too!"

He opened a tube and squeezed out a tiny amount of pure octarine onto his fingertip. It hung, sparking, in the light. He nodded appreciation.

" I reckon old Bridget Gadget would approve. It's goin' to another artist. And from what I hear, she knows _exactly_ what to do with it. And... here's the recipe. For when you run out. Call it a Hogswatch present?"

Ponder resolved to get Gillian to check if it was toxic. He'd give her the recipe too. She was _good_ at sourcing pigments...

And Ruth was delighted with her Hogswatch present, that came jointly from her father and her grandfather. Ponder smiled, a happy father.

 _ **To be continued**_

* * *

 **(1)** Koukouchou-san, Miss Pretty Butterfly, taught Agatean Culture, which wasn't _all_ about kicking somebody so hard their kidneys flew out through their nose. Indeed, Butterfly painstakingly taught pupils the basic gradations of Agatean honorifics, which ran _to my peers and equals I am Koukouchou-san. To my closest and most valued friends, I am Koukouchou-chan. As you are neither, you will use the respectful Koukouchou-sama._ _ **Sensei**_ _will also suffice in the disciplines I teach._ As students knew, she had ways of making this memorable if they slipped up and used the inappropriate honorific. Nobody made that error more than once.

 **(2)** Even so, she had to steel herself to walk into his shop and was aware of the potential for hideous embarrassment if anyone she knew saw her walking out of it again. Scrope had, out of some sales imperative of his own, remarked that "you've been married for sixteen years now, Doctor Smith-Rhodes? Could I interest you in… ah well, perhaps not."

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Just realised. My description of Ruth S-R-S is coming out to make her look like a child version of Kate Micucci (Lucy in** _ **The Big Bang Theory**_ **, and one half of musical comic duo Garfunkel & Oates). Didn't mean this consciously – but a waif with very dark hair and big easily startled eyes… Ponder could so easily have a daughter who looks like this… one where the Smith-Rhodes genes stood back and said "Take a break, guys. Physically, this one can be a Stibbons, we've had two good goes already. Ponder's idle lazy genes can do the work here. Never mind them bleating about being "recessive". They've got a kid to make."**

 **And with one daughter committed to Magic and one to Assassination – that satisfies the necessary narrative causality, and the third can take a life direction all of her own….**

 **Of course, Ponder and Johanna have actually** _ **met**_ **Lucy. (in** _ **The Many Worlds Interpretation**_ **) Wonder if they've seen it too? And if they're fretting about deer…**

 **Conversely (and this will make no sense outside Britain, but bear with me) the girl in the current Easy Jet holiday advert, the one who gets pursued everywhere by a creature made out of flowers, is a good referent for an adult Ruth…. Google or YouTube on on "Explore Europe with easyJet... #WhyNot?"**

 **Also a nod to British abstract artist Bridget Riley, whose work is - wow. Eye-watering, but in a fascinating way. Eye-catching, certainly, but in this world it's socialised to let you have your eyes back afterwards.  
**

 **Various references to Roundworld horror stories, one easy to pick up on if you know the referents (reader Carrie VS spotted it) but also to a maddeningly elusive horror short I read many years ago, about a guy returning from colonial service in India who brings back a souvenir. Namely a Hindu design of such fiendish refinement that to gaze upon it can drive you insane. What does he do, as any rational Englishman should? He has it made up into wallpaper and decorates an entire room with it - including the back of the door. his intention might be to lure a hindersome wife in there and to lock the door on her. Or something. But going in to relish the mind-slurping horror of it for a few seconds... _the door slams shut behind him..._ Looking for this story online, could I find it? Could I hell. I think this may have been one of Saki's. Every referent online was to a different gothic-American tale around 1898 called _The Yellow Wallpaper_ , which has the same sort of theme and which is now read as a proto-feminist thing - about a new wife who lives in a house with a room with sinister yellow wallpaper which may induce hallucinations and definite psychosis in her. Result - she goes nuts. Taken today as a metaphor for the suffocating nature of Victorian marriage and what it did to women, apparently. So the Interior Design Section of Unseen University's Art Depository therefore had to have wallpaper in it. **


	28. Goeie gesondheid en welstand

_**Strandpiel 28:**_ _**Goeie gesondheid en welstand – good health and wellbeing**_

 _ **Here we are again... yet another chapter. Quick revision to kill typos and soforth:  
**_

Bekki had been out walking the fields with Apricity Brabble. Spending time with the other young witches and seeing them in their own worlds, doing the things they were most skilled with and most at home with, was always an education. It was all part of the Circuit, the open and easy interchange of skills and ideas. And out here, walking the rows and furrows of the big field, she was seeing Apricity in her own world, the world of growing green things. The usually shy and nervy young Witch was Mistress here and she knew her stuff about crops, the quiet slow cycle of growing green things.

In this case, winter wheat and barley, the last crop sown in autumn which would be hardy and slow-growing over the winter months, largely insulated under a blanket of snow. Proof that winter didn't stop life – it merely slowed it. The first shoots of Spring were beginning here, pinpricks of green in a black and white world.

And speaking of green...

A blur of green pixels came streaking down the field. Apricity looked it it with a certain dissapproval.

"Grindguts? Not _across_ the growing rows. _Along_ the furrow, where we walk. What have I told you?" she asked.

"Err, sorry, miss." Grindguts said. He'd learnt to respect witches. Especially since Bekki had hit on the idea of using him as a sort of messeging service, to quickly communicate with other witches around Lancre. She'd reflected on how quickly an imp could move across Ankh-Morpork, navigating the dangers of the City, and wondered if it could be useful here; after all, she'd seen him do it on the night Olecrana Elbow had died, when a message needed to go to her mother, very quickly. It wasn't instantaneous by any means, but a well-nourished Imp could move very quickly indeed as a trail of pixels. He was a useful familiar to have, in this respect.

"What's up, Grindguts?" she asked.

"Just come from Miss Sophie at the horse-stud, Bekki." he said. "She's got a tricky foaling on. Needs a hand. Asked for you."

Bekki looked to where she and Apricity had stacked their brooms at the entrance to the field. "Better fly, then." she said. "Coming, Apricity?"

Two witches and a demon made their way back down the furrows.

"Good job it's still half-froze." Grindguts remarked. "This'd be a right bugger to move in when it gets muddy."

Apricity shrugged.

"You get used to it." she said.

 _ **The Guild of Assassins, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork. The month of Offle**_ **. (1)**

"Remarkable." Matron Igorina said, concluding her examination. "All done, for now. You can get dressed, Johanna."

Johanna gratefully swung off the examination table, and began reaching for clothes, feeling oddly vulnerable **.(2)** She felt grateful that Igorina, at least, wasn't calling her "My Lady."

"Why remarkable?" she asked, suspecting that she wouldn't like the answer. A little bit of her remembered, uneasily, those nagging little pains in her chest she got from time to time, which came out of nowhere for no readily apparent reason. She'd shrugged them off as one of those things, and nothing to worry about. But Bekki had been _insistent_... she'd decided to have Igorina take a look, if only to humour her daughter and to be able to say "Yes, Rebecka, I _have_ asked for advice on this."

Igorina gave her a long look.

"It's remarkable that you have come to ask for medical advice. Without being forced to, or ordered to, and completely of your own free will."

Johanna winced slightly.

"So. Igorina. Is there enything there I should be concerned ebout?"

"I'd know better if you allowed me to take a proper look inside." Igorina said, sternly.

"Not a bleddy chance." Johanna said, firmly. Her medical adviser shook her head. She'd been forced to make a more remote diagnosis than Igors usually liked to, using non-invasive techniques like stephoscopes, questioning about family history, and asking the patient about observed symptoms. She'd pointed out to Johanna that actually being able to directly observe your heart in action would cut through the uncertainty. With the added bonus that if she directly spotted anything not right, it could be fixed there and then. And I'd do my best cosmetic stitching afterwards, none of those clumsy eighteen-inch scars along the breastbone that male Igors like so much.

"Okay." Igorina said, taking a deep breath. "Family history of sudden unexplained cardiac arrest. More prevalent in women in your family as they get older. Your father's sister dropped suddenly at the age of thirty-four. Admittedly after several stressful days of minimal sleep and constant fighting. Which is _normal_ for Smith-Rhodes women. No post-mortem or investigation. However, your daughter, the witch, gathered some rather more unusual post-mortem evidence, involving speaking directly with the deceased. From what she said, I suspect the key factors are cardiomyopathic conditions, such as a weakness in one or more of the heart valves. In your case, possibly the aortic and pulmonary semilunar valves regulating blood flow to the lungs or out into the main arterial system. "

Igorina then put this into lay-speak.

"The tubes deteriorate and wear out over time. Slowly, imperceptibly, but they don't last for ever. An exertion of effort you might have not even noticed at twenty-five can prove too much for you at forty-five, and everything goes twang. Unravels."

"Okay." Johanna said. She took a deep breath. "Elweys essuming I ectually _wanted_ to do enything ebout this." she said. "Explain the options."

"Well." replied Igorina. "On the one hand, you live till well into your seventies and get to see all three of your daughters giving you grandchildren. All three will get the message after a constant stream of reminders and prompts from their mother. And you _will_ , Johanna. It's in your genes to. I'm betting you're already fretting that Rebecka doesn't write home nearly often enough? Thought so."

"Igorina?"

"Yes, Johanna?"

"Try not to look so bleddy _smug_ , will you?"

Igorina smiled.

"On the other hand, something you _also_ get through your genes is a tendency to cardiomyopathy. Which means that at some point in the next thirty years you may well drop dead, suddenly, and with no warning, and never get to see those grandchildren. Which is a shame, because periodically getting very annoyed with you because you refuse to accept medical advice is a professional challenge to me, and I think I'd miss that. So I propose surgery, Johanna."

Johanna, fully dressed by now, nodded grudgingly. Igorina went in for something other than the kill. The complete opposite, in fact.

"I check your heart valves. Repair or replace if necessary. Not the whole heart. Just the valves. Check there isn't any atherosclerosis going on. Ensure there's no need for any bypass surgery, and if there is, do it. A one-stop overhaul, in fact. And I close up afterwards, give you my very best cosmetic stitching, then you _will_ take a month off with light duties and lots of bedrest. _**No. Arguing. Rest.**_ Then the job's done. Barring Acts of Gods, you get up to another forty years. Well, whatever kills you then will not be your heart, unless anyone gets close enough to put a dagger through it."

"I'll think ebout it." Johanna said, grudgingly.

Igorina smiled slightly and shook her head.

"I've already booked your room at the Lady Sybil. In two weeks. Lord Downey agrees, incidentally. So does Dame Joan. And Alice. And Emmanuelle. They all think you're too good to lose."

There was a meaningful pause.

"Igorina. Whetever heppened to doctor-patient confidentielity?"

"I thought I needed back-up on this one. Patient with a history of non-compliance. And the story Bekki told pretty much convinced me, even before needing to examine you. A very clever young girl. You should be proud of her."

Igorina smiled again.

"Look. Igors work closely with Witches. We respect their input. Very able women. If a witch tips you off that she thinks there's a problem – you listen to her."

Igorina paused, and added

"If it's any consolation, I warned Bekki she shouldn't think she's immune. She's got the family genes too. Then again, she's sensible. Unlike certain female relatives I could name. You might mention this to Mariella and suggest she drops in for a check-up when she's next in town? Got to be thorough about these things."

 _ **Hobley's Stud, Lancre**_

Sophie Rawlinson had lost a lot of her usual bumptious energy. She looked very tired and very worried and, Bekki noticed, was not so much Witch as merely anxious and teenage. She, Bekki and Apricity examined the panting, sweating, and very gravid, Pegasus mare together. Her bonded Witch-pilot, Miss Stacey Matlock, soothed her mount at the head-stall, looking very worried indeed.

Bekki knew this was serious. This was a Pegasus mare in foal. And if things were not resolved soon, not only the foal but the mother could be lost. Ankh-Morpork would not like this very much. Then Bekki reflected that Ankh-Morpork could go and voetsaak. What mattered here was an animal in distress... _two_ animals in distress. That these were extremely valuable animals was of lesser importance.

"She can't foal, Bekki." Sophie explainned. "Tried everything. I've even been inside. There's definitely a foal in there. But it can't come out. Something's going wrong but I don't know what. And it might be a feet-first delivery."

"Isn't that how horses usually come out?" Apricity asked, innocently. The other witches looked at her.

"Think about it." Sophie said, with exhausted tiredness. "Not with a horse that's got wings."

"If it comes out head-first." Bekki said, gently. "The wings stay flat to the body. No problem. But the other way round. Against the set of the wings. With the uterus pushing, anyway."

Apricity considered this for a second. Then she blanched.

"Ouch." she said.

"Ouch indeed." said Bekki. Then she focused her mind. It was something she'd first learnt with a struggling nanny goat in a barn in Howondaland, several thousand miles away.

"Everyone be quiet a moment..."

Bekki focused and tried to make contact. The Pegasus mare turned tired and pain-filled eyes to her. Then the connection happened, and she realised. Three lives now. She saw the picture in her mind and tried to make sense of the tangle of limbs and bodies. She thought, and asked the mare a direct question.

 _Save foals. Take pain away. Do it._

"I understand." Bekki said. "I'll try not to hurt you – or them." Then she turned to Sophie.

"You know about horses. How often does a mare have twins?"

Sophie blinked with tiredness. Then the implications hit her.

"You mean..."

"Twins. And tangled. Both Pegasii, too. I saw the wings."

Bekki called for Grindguts.

"Yes, love?"

"Run me a message to the nearest Clacks tower." she said. "For my mother. Reversed charges. She said I could do it in an emergency. Tell her: Pegasus mare. Dystocia. Twin foals. The wings make normal birth dangerous. I want her to guide me through a Caesarean. What do I need to do and how? Wait – I'll write it down. Wait for a reply and bring it straight back. Got that?"

"Bekki. You want to – open her up? Go in directly?" Sophie said.

"Might need to yet. Stacey. You need to know. If we have to do this it's hazardous to the mother. But at least the foals live."

The older witch nodded, sadly.

"You've done this before. Bekki?" Apricity asked. Bekki decided to hedge a little.

"Helped with one at the Zoo, yes. And that was a zebra, Sophie. Related species."

Sophie nodded. Bekki did not add that she'd just pretty much watched, while her mother did one. That had been a single foal, awkwardly presented. But mother and foal had both lived.

While waiting for the reply, Bekki examined the mother herself. Stripped down and greased, and reaching as far inside as she possibly could, as she feared, a foal was jammed in there. Wrong way round and with at least one wing opened out and blocking the passage. It was potentially stuck like an arrow with a barb. Or opening an umbrella indoors and trying to get it through a door, wrong way round. And the mare was contracting... this meant either the stray wing would tear the tissues, or it would be irreversably damaged rendering it useless for flight, or both. And she couldn't reach far enough in to flatten it down against the foal's body...

"Sophie. Get me some oil of guafinesia **(3),** could you? You know the one. It's an essence distilled from one of Mistress Weatherwax's _special_ herbs, and yes, _mayhersoulhave merccyontheGods._ I need a small-bore syringe too. Thanks. Quick as you can."

Bekki explained what she was going to do. Inject a strong sedative, almost a paralysing agent, directly into the uterine tissue to act like a desperate brake on the labour contractions. The mother would get some relief, the foals would remain sustained, for the moment, in the uterus, without being flooded with hormones of alarm and distress, and then they could consider sedating the mother sufficiently to allow for her to be gently dropped onto her side to make a caesarean birth possible. To take the immediate distress away, hold everything in a sort of stasis for now, and to wait for the advice from Bekki's mother, who had done _loads_ of caesareans. They were a regular thing at the Zoo.

Very, very, carefully, and intently focused, Bekki went back inside the mare with the syringe. The last thing she wanted to do was to prick her finger. Or into the foal, whose hindlegs projected some way into the birth canal but, because of the opened wing, could go no further _. Is this another reason why Pegasii died out in Nature_?, she thought. And she had to put it in the right places... with intense care, she injected the anaesthesia regularly in three or four places, carefully judging the amount she was putting into each. With surprising speed, the contractions ceased. She checked what she could again: the foal she could reach was still alive. Good. A stillbirth was no fun for anybody. Very carefully, she extracted her arm and the syringe. She checked her arm: all manner of things she preferred not to think about, but no blood. So nothing torn in there. Yet.

"We wait now?" Sophie asked.

"We wait." Bekki confirmed. The four witches waited together.

Then a blurred streak of pixels somehow bearing a Clacks flimsy shot into the stable. Grindguts passed it up to Bekki.

 _Caesarean mandated. Keep patient stable. Inject strong anaesthetic into uterine muscle to suspend contractions. Monitor lifesigns of foals. Will be arriving within the hour – speaking to OR and IP. If necessary drop patient, strong local to flank and deep tissues, go in with scalpel, extract foals and placentae, stitch up from interior to exterior (uterus, muscle wall and external skin) advise that mother may be lost, put foals on wetnurse. Horses can only stand so much rough treatment. But am coming. Mother._

 _Good diagnosis stop. Like the one you did on_ _me_ _. Stop. Will talk to you about_ _that_ _stop. Love, mother._

"Mum's coming." Bekki said. "The Pegasus Service is flying her out."

"She's good at these things, is she?" Sophie said, the born horsewoman expressing doubts about a mere generalist.

Bekki smiled tolerantly.

"You'll see." she said.

In the early evening light, four witches settled down to watch and wait...

 _ **The Royal Kraal,**_ _ **uMgungundlovu, (Ulundhi) The Zulu Empire.**_

" _Ingonyamakazi!"_

Nearly a thousand warriors of the new impi, ranked on the parade ground outside the Royal Kraal, watched the way their iNduna's spear rose. They heard their iNduna begin the chant, the ritual of challenge, the proud statement to an enemy of who they were, of whose right arms were stronger, of who would most assuredly leave the battlefield alive and triumphant. Nearly a thousand throats roared back

" _Singujehova_ _Ingonyamakazi!"_

And beat assegai and knobkerry against their flat hide shields, in perfect unison.

Their iNduna smiled. Many, many, people were watching. The new impi was officially the Guard Regiment of the Paramount Crown Princess. She did, indeed, have the right to raise a fighting regiment of her own. She had taken this seriously, and had petitioned her father, the Paramount King, for total freedom to raise her troops in the manner she best saw fit. The fighting soldiers she had raised and trained were turning heads. Everywhere. Indeed, in the singing and the chanting there was a distinct absence of bass voices. Contraltos, yes. And quite a few sopranos. Maybe the majority voice was mezzo-soprano. And, as observers conceded, it was certainly _different_...

Ruth N'Kweze had not been idle since being called Home to assume her rank. She had reasoned that if being a Zulu Princess involved ceremonial duties and these included raising a Regiment loyal to her, she was therefore going to take those ceremonial duties _seriously_. She had given the matter some serious thought, and had called together six or seven people who had also been educated overseas, either as her peers or later as her pupils, and explained what she wanted to do and why. All of them had come in on the project and had helped select and train the recruits called to the service of the Princess. She had also convinced her husband, pointing out that both the heriditary enemies of the Empire raised women soldiers and _we didn't_.

Ruth had pointed out that the White Howondalandians had been training women to fight in the front lines for some time now. Did she have to remind him of the Red Death sisters, and the new terrible manifestation of the line, the one known as White Death Tinged With Blood? **(4)** And there were thousands of women trained to fight by their Armed Forces. Then, look in the other direction. The Matabels have a long tradition of Amazon warriors – fierce, strong, fighting killers. Yet we, the Zulus, lag behind and insist it is not seemly for women to fight. _We can change this._

And now the result stood ranged in ranks before her, trained, fit, armed, confident, and ready to fight. Ruth smiled. She had her _Ingonyamakazi_ now – the Lioness Impi. And her father was now posting them to an active command. She felt relieved it would not be against the Whites. She had too many friends there, for one thing.

Ruth considered their movement order. They were going out as part of a Bull's Horn commanded, at least nominally, by her husband. It was to a border where some unrest was going on with the neighbours and a show of strength needed to be made. Ruth wondered if this was her father's way of moving a problem on: having seen it could be done, Zulu women were now getting ideas. If they no longer had anything visible to get ideas about, that would serve her father.

 _Well, let's start the march to the furthest border of the Empire..._

Ruth nodded to her indunalas. They wore variant feathers and distinctions; Sisimina N'Kime, for instance, wore green and white. Only another graduate Assassin might realise these were also the colours of Tump House. Another indunula wore red and black. Quite coincidentally, the House colours of Scorpion House. Ruth had chosen her officers carefully. She had also suggested to her husband and her father that if the White Howondalandians especially valued graduate Assassins – especially their special forces under the arch-enemy Hans "Crowbar" Dreyer – then the Empire could _learn_ from this. And take notes. Her father had agreed, and made the necessary orders.

And the march began. Ruth led them off, looking forward to demonstrating a new way of fighting. She was indeed inclined to take her duties as Paramount Crown Princess seriously, throw herself into them whole-heartedly, and to obey her father's command, which was of course binding law, to the very last letter. And like Hell weas she only going to be a figurehead iNduna, a Colonel-In-Chief, leaving active command to a man. She was going to bloody well _lead_ and take the command decisions. Her husband understood this well enough. It was one of the good things about him. Even if he wasn't, and never would be, Julian. She smiled. Sissi N'Kima was the person she absolutely trusted. She had Julian's latest letter. Kept absolutely safe for her, her Princess, to whom she was a loyal woman to the end of her days. And a former pupil at the Guild School, which helped. Also one who had a very good Understanding with her peer Mariella Smith-Rhodes - the two very carefully refrained from using the f-word. Why, a Zulu and a Vondalaander could never be _friends_ , the very idea was unthinkable. Two people who had spent seven years growing up together at the Assassins' School, on the other hand... Ruth smiled again as she led her troops in a fast easy trot.

 _ **Hobley's Stud, Lancre**_

One of the advantages to being in a place where there was a City Watch presence was that hot strong sweet tea was always freely available. Apricity Brabble, the youngest witch, had been detailed to get the brews in. Bekki, Sophie and Stacey had set about monitoring the life-signs of mother and unborn foals and debating, if the moment came, how to go about an emergency Caesarean. Bekki had got them organised to hang up adequate oil-lamps and to establish a makeshift operating theatre, consisting of a drift of roughly-shaped straw to drop the mother onto, with things like surgical alcohol, needle and thread, and sharp scalpels available. It was agreed that all they'd managed to do was to halt Nature for a period, but things could not be left like this forever.

Bekki, remembering the one caesarean she'd ever seen done, had sent Apricity to scrounge a shavng razor from a watchman, and was explaining that they needed to shave the outer skin over the incision site right back to the skin, so as to be able to clearly see where they were to cut. Bekki had indeed got as far as gently shaving back the hair over a broad incision scar, explaining they needed to go in right over the uterus,and it would have to be a long sure cut. We'd also need cloths, ideally towels, to soak up any blood...

"Not bed." A fourth voice said, drily. "I myself would engle the incision like this, on en equine. Do not forget she will be lying on her side."

Two of the three witches jumped. The third said "Hi, mum." in as nonchalant a voice as she could manage, trying not to betray too much relief.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled slightly. Behind her, Irena Politek stood with arms folded.

 _Of course_ , Bekki thought. _Air Police and Pegasus Service. She needs to be here. This is official._

"Devyushka." Irena said. "Shall we see what we have here?" She was carrying Mum's equipment bag, Bekki noted. And Mum was stripping her tunic off and asking for something to grease her arm...

Bekki and the others watched her mother make the internal examination. Mum frowned.

"End you were prepared to go in and open her up." Mum said. She shook her head slightly. "Well, full marks for resolution end for making the correct diagnosis. But with these horses."

Mum was selecting a syringe and a bottle from her bag now.

"The price on these creatures cennot be expressed in dollars." Mum remarked. "If it could, each might be worth millions. Lose even _one_ , end Lord Vetinari would not be a heppy Petricien."

Johanna looked at her daughter. She smiled slightly.

"Tonight, we might lose _three_." she remarked. "End best I em the one to stend in front of Vetinari end make the report. Whet did you use to suspend the contrections, Bekki?"

"Oil of guafinesia, mum. In a one-in-ten dilution."

Johanna frowned, then replaced the small brown bottle and selected a different one.

"I require this diluting to half its current potency." she directed. She looked at Apricity. "You look sensible. Cen you? Dankie." She turned back to Bekki.

"Good choice." Johanna said. "But you can only use oil of guafinesia _once_ on a horse. A second dose would be a mercy killing. It means I must rethink whet to use es a general anaesthetic to drop her. A less powerful specific. Even then she might be dangerously full of sedatives. But there is no choice here."

Apricity nervously held up the remixed drug. Johanna thanked her, and filled a syringe.

"Sophie? Raise a vein in the neck for me. Dankie. I propose to do this under general enasthaesia. End once the mother is out, we must go in _quickly_. Time is of the essence."

Sophie blinked.

"Sorry. I was just thinking how _alike_ you both look."

Johanna grinned.

"People do say thet. _Ja_." She paused, and added

"One of you. Go end fetch two gallons of warm milk. Warmed to body heat. End two feeding bottles, of the sort used to hand-feed a small enimel. You must have such things here? They will be needed."

"I know where to get them." Sophie said.

"Good. But first, the neck."

Bekki watched as Sophie rasied a vein for her mother to inject. Stacey held the head-reins and made soothing noises to her mount. Bekki sensed Irena moving next to her. Her former tutor was grimly amused.

"Well, _devyuschka_ , you had the sense to shout for your mother when you ran into trouble." she said. "Lose a Pegasus. No small thing. No small thing at all. We've only got fifteen. It's not the value in dollars. It's that they are so unbelievably _rare_. Hard to replace. Vetinari would have been very sarcastic to you."

She paused, and added

"Olga wouldn't have been too pleased, either. Can't have that. Best you stand back, watch your mum in action, and take notes."

"Do you think this will be okay?" Bekki asked, in a low voice. She tried not to sound too worried. Irena smiled.

"Put it this way. Your mother. Or Doughnut Jimmy. Who would _you_ choose? When your mother got the clacks, she sent it straight on to us with a note added saying "Pick me up here. I've got my working bag." I picked her up, of course. Then my lad Big Tam, Gods know where he is right now, crawstepped us here. Took twenty minutes."

"Up here, mistress. Wi' the Green Yin." A voice called.

Johanna and Stacey were gently walking the mare down the stables, watching for her to get unsteady on her hooves.

Irena inobtrusively counted down on her fingers.

"I don't think she's going to go down, ma'am..."

Irena said "Ah!", as Johanna dealt out a slightly irritated look at Sophie Rawlinson, who was returning with milk and feeding bottles.

"Somebody usually says that about now." Irena explained. "Trust me, _devyushka_."5 **(5)**

A few seconds later, the Pegasus mare swayed, tottered and crashed onto her side, right on top of the sheeted hay-bales the girls had set up as an operating table.

"Scelpel!" Johanna called. "Stacey, monitor her breathing. Epricity, see if you cen hold the wing on this side slightly out of the way, _dankie_. No, the _really big_ scelpel. Horse-hide is tough! Bekki, the Number Twelve Blade. _Dankie_."

Bekki and Sophie knelt beside Johanna, who kept up a running commentary.

"Retrect the skin-fleps beck. Tidy them out of the way. These ere retrectors. Useful tools. Now to open the muscle-wall. Where we cen, go _between_ the muscle groups end not _through_ them. Easier to stitch. Less complications. Now this is where it gets interesting. Sophie. You're big end strong. I require you to essist in exteriorising the uterus. Thet means lifting it, end the foals, es far es you can... CETCH HER!"

Sophie had gone slightly green and was swaying forward. Bekki and Irena caught and arm each and steered her away.

Johanna looked impassive.

"Es I say to my students, fainting end felling into the patient is _not_ edvisable." she said, drily. She looked over to Apricity, who seemed unaffected and fascinated. Then smiled.

"Elways the big hearty jolly ones who faint. Surprising, isn't it? Epricity. Right now I need to cut into the uterus. This hes to be done carefully, so es not to cut into the foals inside. End it looks es if there is not much room in here. Let us proceed..."

Bekki and Irena quickly propped Sophie up against a haybale. Then they returned to the operation.

"Both foals alive. Thet is pleasing. And, Rebecka. Observe. You were correct. This one who is partway into the birth-canal. The wings, both of them, have part-opened in the womb. No way this one would be born normally. Like opening en umbrella indoors, end trying to beck out of the room."

"Ouch..." Irena, Bekki and Apricity said, together. They felt their legs closing in self-defence and solidarity. Johanna grinned.

"None of my three were born with wings. Thenkfully." she said. "Bekki. Help to disentagle the forelimbs from its sibling. Then we cen birth this one first."

Afte that it was straightforward. Bekki and Apricity eased and lifted the Pegasus foal out of its mother's side, heedless of a necessary amount of blood and mattter.

"Sophie!" Bekki called, urgently. "Job for you!"

Sophie, delightedly, began to rub down the newborn foal. A few minutes later, a second foal was staggering onto its hooves and wobbling, a set of small, perfect, wings, as yet featherless, tucked back against its body.

"Now we need to ensure the womb is free of efterbirth... then we cen stitch up. Epricity. How good are you et stitching? There is a lot to do."

A few seconds later, she was trying to gently force away an insistent foal who was searching for his mother's milk. Very close to where some serious stitching was going on. Bekki now understood about the milk. She called to Sophie, who also understood.

And then she and Sophie were each feeding a Pegasus foal with teated bottles. Bekki knew they could go back to their mother later. When the stitching was finished. For now, it was down to witch intervention.

"I let myself down there, didn't I?" Sophie said, ruefully. Bekki considered this.

"Is that the first time you've ever, you know, seen a horse from the inside?" she asked. Bekki had opened up a lot of pigs lately, both living and dead. She was used to it. But she reflected that outside the Hub regions and Quirm, nobody much ate horsemeat. So this probably was the first time Sophie had seen a living horse of any kind cut open in front of her.

Sophie nodded. Bekki smiled.

"You'll get used to it." she said, and got on with the quiet joy of bottle-feeding a hungry foal, that kept impatiently coming back to her and butting her leg whenever the bottle emptied.

"We're going to need some more milk, I think." Bekki said. "Two gallons isn't going very far."

"I'll get it." Irena Politek said. She had been watching the two young witches with a little smile on her face.

"It hasn't occured to you two yet? Kopek not dropped?" she added.

"The kopek... oh. _What_ penny?" Sophie asked. She was engrossed in the joy of being with a baby animal, and not just any baby animal – a horse.

Irena grinned.

"Well. Each of you has a Pegasus foal. Which is accepting milk from your hand. And which is clearly coming back to you – not just anyone else, _you_ – and demanding _more_. I'll leave you to work it out, shall I?"

Bekki and Sophie looked at each other, and their mouths dropped open at the same time. It really hadn't registered. They'd just seen "baby animal in distress and needs care" and done the job in front of them, working Witches.

Bekki looked down at her Pegasus, a stallion. Or at least, an aspirant one.

"I think I'll call you "Boykie". she said. Then wondered if the spelling should be " _Boetjie_ ". Never mind, she could look it up, or ask Mum, once she'd finished the stitching. Not important.

Boykie **(6)** the newborn Pegasus nuzzled her hand, with love and trust.

 _ **To be continued**_

 **(1)** Late January, to us.

 **(2)** People do when half-naked in a doctor's surgery.

 **(3)** also, spelt differently, a very potent veterinarian anaesthetic used in conjunction with ketamine to do pretty much this in awkwardly-birthing horses requiring surgical intervention.

 **(4)** A strawberry-blonde Smith-Rhodes caused some naming difficulties. Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande could not easily be categorised, even though it was agreed after certain exploits she was also a Death to Zulus she had encountered. _The Pink Death_ was not held to be a fitting tribute to a feared enemy, for instance. Debate continued as to what ideally pithy name the Empire should bestow upon her. _Raspberry-Ripple Death_ had also been vetoed. It was held that the person who'd come up with _that_ one wasn't taking things sufficiently seriously.

 **(5)** Narrative causality demands this. James Herriot recalls that one of the irritations of veterinarian life was doing large horse work with his partner, the patrician and very horsey Siegfried Farnon, who always managed to imply Herriot used too little general anaesthetic on horses prior to major surgery. Herriot recounts he could time to the second, after injecting a patient, the moment when Siegfried would shake his head and say "I really don't think he's going to go down, James.". which was usually followed by the horse crashing down unconscious.

 **(6)** Or possibly Boetjie.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **The Finnish word for pedant,** _ **pilkunnussija,**_ **translates literally as** _ **'comma fucker'**_ **. – Swommi character…**

 **Memo – find out more about things like "winter wheat" and how it grows – at the moment I'm only guessing…**


	29. Oorgange en Veranderinge

_**Strandpiel 29:**_ _ **Oorgange en Veranderinge – Transistions and Changes**_

 _ **Here we are again... yet another chapter.**_

 _ **Looking closely at the Mapps in the Compleat Discworld Atlas, and realising that my conception of Howondaland and how it fits into the wider Disc needs to be "tweaked" a little from canon to make it work.**_

 _ **In our world, East Africa swings up from South Africa through Mozambique and Kenya into Ethiopia and then to Egypt and the Middle-East. More or less.**_

 _ **In my Howondaland, you'd have Rimwards Howondaland at the bottom near the Rim with something of a Widdershins coast (a port city called something like "Turban", for instance). Then you get the Zulu Empire which would be bigger and more solid than its equivalent on our world, which would have absorbed the local equivalent of Mozambique and Kenya as provinces. "Ethiopia" and indeed "Saudi Arabia" would be provinces of Klatch, and "Egypt" displaced up to the Circle Sea as Djelibeybi. (with Cenotia next door, displaced from where Israel would be on our world). The debated semi-desert zone with its Apaches would be inland, bordering the Great Nef and the Central Plains with Klatch on the other side.**_

 _ **The physical geography of the Disc, at this point, curves back into the Central Continent with the Tezuman Jungle beginning some way inland. You get the "Gulf of Ghat" and then Ghat itself, which the political atlas notes is a province of the mysterious and religiously hard-line Theocracy of Muntab.**_

 _ **Hmm, he thinks. Shades here of the Moghul Empire, where an Islamic dynasty subjugated the Hindu peoples of northern India and ruled them for several centuries, or at least till the British turned up.**_

 _ **What if... Ghat/Muntab has a hazy, ill-defined border with the Zulu Empire. Not much of one, depending on the narrow coastal strip Rimwards of the Tezuman Kingdom. And up until now, the Theocracy of Muntab and the Zulu Empire have had an informal agreement to leave well alone and not to militarise it. But a new Theocrat has arisen with ideas and has thought -why not annex this rich fertile land which the Tezumen clearly don't want. Build a fort or two here, and tell the uncivilised primitive Zulus they can like it or lump it. Our Armies are morally and technologically superior, after all, and fired with the Word of Muntabian religion. And best of all, it allows a strategic jumping-off point for a Holy Expansion into Howondaland, as the Gods clearly dictate. After all. Spear-chucking Zulus. What threat can they possibly be...**_

 _ **Muntab is about to find out. Lionesses will be involved.**_

 _ **First version – the usual revisions for typos and clumsy bits will follow**_

 _ **Meanwhile in Ankh-Morpork and Lancre...**_

 _ **The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork:**_

"I propose we leave the renewed Muntab question for analysis at a later time." Vetinari said, setting the briefing notes to one side. "At least _this_ time we have a concrete issue to work from, and a fairly clearly defined problem to find an answer to. Also, it will take some time for the Zulu Empire to reinforce its Hubwards-by-Widdershins border, even given the renowned speed at which its armies can deploy. We have time, I think."

He nodded at the City Council assembly, a fairly small one which, unusually, had no more than twenty or so key people in the room.

"I require a report on the current state of the Pegasus Service." Vetinari said, briskly. "I believe there have been pleasing developments recently, Lieutenant Romanoff?"

Olga Romanoff stepped forward.

"Yes, sir. I am pleased to report that the Service currently has fourteen Pegasii which are fully fit for service. A fifteenth is currently recovering following surgical intervention and at present is unfit for service. But there are no complications, she is recovering well, and will be fit for flight in perhaps two months. Usually a horse can return to normal work after perhaps a month, but I want to be _absolutely_ certain of this one."

"Ah, yes." Vetinari remarked. His eyes scanned the room.

"I believe we have Dame Johanna to thank for this."

Johanna gritted her teeth and forced herself to smile. Her eyes met Vetinari's. _He's enjoying this, the bliksem._

"And her talented and able elder daughter. Who I understand may well inherit a title on her eighteenth birthday? The Smith-Rhodes baronetcy, passed to a Smith-Rhodes born in Ankh-Morpork. The title returns home, so to speak."

Vetinari smiled a gnomic smile. He nodded at Croissant Rouge Pursuivant, a senior Herald who was trying to hide at the back of the room and was trying very hard not to attract Johanna's attention.

"Which ties up a small but untidy loose end to everybody's satisfaction, I think. And now we have the happy news of not one, but two, Pegasus foals."

He nodded to Johanna.

"The appropriate bounty will of course be paid. This is understood. We can afford to be generous. Lieutenant Romanoff, how long does it take for a Pegasus foal to become fully operational?"

Olga shrugged.

"They grow fast. I estimate they will be fit for flight in between a year and eighteen months. Possibly sooner. As creatures at least partly of magic, the normal rules do not apply."

"So there will be seventeen operational Pegasii." Vetinari noted. "Have the new foals selected their pilots and been Named?"

"Yes, sir." Olga said. "The newborn foals have bonded to two young witches. I am making plans to induct both young ladies into the Service. And, as Commander Vimes insists, they will also be sworn in as Special Constables of the Watch."

Sam Vimes nodded a very satisfied nod.

"Haven't met the Rawlinson girl yet, but apparently she went to Sybil's old school." he said. "So she'll have self-confidence _in spades_. And I know Rebecka Smith-Rhodes."

He nodded to Johanna.

"Her mother was a bloody good Special. Want to come back, Johanna? You can pick up a badge again, any time. And I'm glad to be getting your daughter. And her Pegasus."

Vetinari nodded.

And the _names_ of the new mounts?" he asked, genially. "I believe once a Pegasus accepts its Witch and responds to the name she has given it, they are bonded for life."

Olga swallowed slightly.

"Pilot Rawlinson has named her mount _Rosie_ , sir." she said, reluctantly. Naming the Pegasii was, she considered, a weak point. They tended to attract names that were not wholly appropriate. "After the first pony she owned, when she was four."

"And Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons?" Vetinari asked. He glanced at Johanna again. "I _do_ apologise. The _Honourable_ Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons."

Johanna winced again and tried not to glare.

"Just Miss Smith-Rhodes, sir. A witch always takes her mother's name." Olga said. "And except in special circumstances, we don't use social ranks. Just Miss, or Mrs, or Mistress." **(1)**

"I stand corrected, Grand Duch... _Mistress_ Romanoff."

It was Olga's turn to wince slightly.

"In fact, I think I have the name here...Drumknott?"

Vetinari, Johanna noted, was in playful mood this morning. Pleased with the two new Pegasii, she speculated.

Drumknott did his best with the word.

"I _think_ it's..." he focused. "Bo – et – e-yeah? _Botjee_?"

Johanna shook her head and put the poor man out of his misery.

" _Boetjie_ ". she said, enunciating clearly. "It is a _difficult_ word to pronounce, for one who does not speak Vondalaans. _Boykie_ will suffice, although the "t" is there, end slightly glottal. The _"-tjie-"_ sound is elweys a sort of " _tcch-kie_ ". Morporkian does not hev the exect same consonant."

"And the derivation? Rebecka's first pony, perhaps?"

"No, sir. _Boetjie_ was the horse belonging to the famed General Koos de la Rey, during the War of Independence. Which people here call the Boor War."

"Ah, I see. History." Vetinari remarked. "But a Pegasus stallion named for a horse belonging to a great military leader. Interesting."

 _One who fought against Ankh-Morpork_ , Johanna thought, with satisfaction. _Bekki, perhaps, making a little point there. Which Vetinari will no doubt have grasped._

 _ **Hobley's Horse Stud, Lancre**_

Bekki and Sophie watched the two Pegasus foals gambolling playfully in the paddock, doing the sort of things all horses do at that age, but without any of their hooves leaving the ground for longer than the normally accepted length of time. Neither horse appeared to want to go that far away from their mother, who was placidly cropping the grass, the only sign of her recent trauma being the long angry red scar on her flank. This was healing faster than might usually be the case for a horse who has undergone major surgery; Bekki reflected that a vet-minded Igor had discreetly visited from Ankh-Morpork, had pronounced homself happy at the work done, and had applied the sort of nameless salve to the wound that Igors use to speed healing.

"Their feathers are coming in." Sophie had said, referring to the downy growth that was beginning on the foals' wings. She shivered with excitement.

"Bekki. _Pegasii_. Can you _imagine_? I can't wait till they're old enough to break in!" she said. "We're flying! On _Pegasii_!"

She hugged Bekki excitedly.

"Yes. But Olga and Irena have both told us what the price is." Bekki said. "We sign the contract. We get sworn in as Pegasus Service pilots. _And_ we've got to join the Watch. That means basic Watch training, In Ankh-Morpork."

"Only for two days a week, though, if you have a Steading." Sophie said. "I get to see the world. How do you go about getting a Feegle to be your Navigator?"

Bekki winced. She had a horrible feeling this had already been decided for her.

"That sorts itself out, I suspect. Kelda Peigi from the High Hog Clan is likely to sort a navigator out for me, I think." Bekki shuddered slightly. She had a good idea as to who he'd be. "Do you have a Clan nearby to here? Who's the Kelda?"

Sophie frowned.

"Not sure. To be honest I've been too busy. You don't get Feegle horses, do you?"

"Probably not, no."

"Then I haven't met any Feegle yet."

They watched their mounts together. Sophie was based here. Bekki now flew over twice a day to feed and groom Boetjie and maintain their bond. The foal was always glad to see her. Even though she knew Sophie would gladly cover for her, Bekki felt this was important and made the time, however busy the working day, to be over morning and evening. Boetjie would become more a central part of her life when he was weaned from his mother. Irena was instructing her in the necessary care and training she'd have to put in then.

"Your mum got a big bounty from Vetinari for what she did, didn't she?" Sophie asked, politely. Bekki nodded. Mum had casually mentioned the amount as if it were no big deal. Bekki's jaw had dropped open in amazement. She just hadn't realised exactly how valuable Pegasii were to Ankh-Morpork. Then Mum had said that she'd put half of it into an investment account for Bekki, which she wouldn't be able to access till she was twenty-one, so no big ideas. By then, interest should have augmented it a little.

"You earned it." Mum had said, laconically.

Mum had added that the wild boars Bekki had rescued as orphaned piglets were settling in well at the Zoo. "Lively creatures." she had added. "No way could you ever have kept them as pets."

They'd been a wrench to part with. But Petulia Gristle had nodded emphatically at the news they'd be moving on. Petulia had been very relieved, in fact, and had helped in nailing the lids _very_ firmly down on some sturdy travelling boxes to be loaded on the outgoing train. Bekki asked a prayer for forgiveness from the Rail Ways staff. Sending unexploded wild boar by rail can't have helped make it a good day for them.

"Oh, Rosie is so _cute_!" Sophie exclaimed. "And... _Boytkey_."

" _Boetjie_." Bekki corrected her. "you've got to get the right back-of-the-throat sound on the "t". It should be barely there."

"Odd name." Sophie said.

Bekki shrugged.

"Maybe in _this_ country. But when I did the War of Independence for History in School. I read about General de la Rey."

Bekki remembered the battle of wills with Miss Lonsdale-Rust. It felt like a lifetime ago now.

"During what my people called the Dark Year. When it looked like the Morporkians might win, if only by weight of numbers. We still held the Transvaal, the Free State and parts of Smith-Rhodesia and Natal. General de la Rey fought and kept the faith. His men called themselves _die Bittereinden_ , the bitter-enders. And every time it looked as if the Morporkians had him cornered at, for instance, one end of the Transvaal. He had a habit of suddenly popping up behind them to ambush the men who were out to get _him_. The legend grew up that Boetjie, his horse, had wings, it could move so fast. So..."

"Bekki? You're sitting here talking with a Morporkian accent about a war in a different country that Ankh-Morpork eventually lost. But you're talking like you're on the other side..."

Bekki grinned.

"Sophie. Just because I was brought up in Ankh-Morpork, and I speak with a Morporkian accent, it doesn't mean I _am_ one. Well. Not _all_ of me. You've met my mother. Imagine lots of people who talk and act and think and fight the way she does. A lot of my family fought in that war. And not _all_ of them were women."

 _Sophie's a Witch. She should be able to speak to the Ancestors, if they turn up near her. I'll introduce her to Johanna van der Kaiboetje..._

"Does it get confusing?" Sophie asked. "Being in two different countries at once?"

"No, not really. People call it being a _Strandpiel_. One foot here, one foot there **.(2)** I worked it out – I _think_ – after becoming a witch. I'm never going to be completely one thing or the other, and there's no point trying. The thing that matters is to be _me_. As hard as I can be."

Sophie shrugged. As usual, her mind returned to things with hooves that neighed. They were easier to deal with and she was entirely at home here.

"I just named mine after my first pony." she said. "I really loved Rosie."

They watched their Pegasii together. It was a nice day.

 _ **The Gulf of Ghat, Howondaland.**_

The Lioness Impi had shaped up well after a forced march up the coast of the Empire. People had turned out from everywhere they'd passed to look upon the phenomenon of an all-female fighting Impi, and, best of all, quite a few girls had approached the iNdula and begged permission to enlist as recruits. The iNdula had received them graciously, reminded them of the obligations of the fighting warrior, that they were to show absolute loyalty to their iNdula, to the Paramount Crown Princess, and to the great Paramount King, in that ascending order, and that to prove worthy of their weapons and distinctions, they were now to be assigned to the initial recruit training batallion of the impi.

The iNdula smiled a satisfied smile. The usual structure of an impi was that it was bound to a region, a clan, or a group of clans. Over time, an age-related structure had evolved where there was a youth impi, a beginners-and-recruits impi, inducting boys of thirteen and over and teaching them the skills of the warrior. At eighteen, the boy, now a man, passed into the unmarried mens' impi, the best, the finest, the fittest, the beating heart and the strong spear-arm. Then there was the married mens' impi, which operated like a combination of reserve regiment and part-time force, to which a nucleus of trained and experienced men could be recalled at need, men of up to sixty who were otherwise civilians.

A female regiment was a new thing. It had not evolved this support structure yet. The iNdula smiled again. This meant she was free to develop a new way. A new structure, a new way of thinking about how to organise and support and sustain an Army. To begin with, she was prepared to recruit _anybody_ , from any part of the Empire, regardless of clan, family, social class, or even ethnicity. If you were a fit strong girl with the right aptitude who was prepared to swear loyalty, you began as a Lioness Cub. Even if you weren't ethnically a Zulu and were Xhosa, Bantu, Hottentuit, or even a loyal Matabel. There were some in the Empire, after all. **(3)**

She assigned her new recruits to the baggage-train after swearing them in, and assuring anxious parents that their daughters would be looked after and cared for as surely as if they were her own daughters, blood of the Paramount Crown Princess herself. The iNdula, after all, had spent several years as Assistant Housemistress of Raven House, and knew all about pastoral care of young girls. She was hardly unskilled in this.

The baggage-train was usually the responsibility of the Youth Impi and the oldest of old men in a male regiment. It would, she reflected, keep the new recruits fairly safe in the rear, and practically test their ability to keep up with the march. Actual drill and weapons training could be delivered as and when, and the best funnelled into the active ranks to replace anyone lost in combat... the iNdula frowned. _Best not think too much of that yet_.

Then Ruth N'Kweze, Paramount Crown Princess of the Empire and iNdula of the Lioness Impi, was called to confer with other leaders concerning what was known of the dispositions of the Muntabians.

She was confident of her abilities here. In a different life, she was also Miss Ruth N'Kweze (Black Widow House), Graduate Assassin, trained in political strategy by Lady T'Malia, one who had listened attentively in Practical Geography lessons delivered by the Compte de Yoyo, trained in the fighting skills and weaknesses of a dozen different nations by people like Johanna Smith-Rhodes, and whose aptitude in weapon skills had been graded highly by people like the Comptesse de Lapoignard. Ruth felt she was in a position to bring something _new_ to the time-honoured martial competences of her nation. And she was inclined to deliver proof of this.

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Famke had returned to School after the hols, marvelling slightly that there hadn't been a serious row with Mum, not even _once_. There had been the usual Announcements at Assembly, with Lord Downey getting smug over the Honours' List, expressing pompous pride in Mrs Mericet getting a Damehood, and then a few muted sniggers in the Hall at Mum becoming a very reluctant Dame.

"While every advancement to the nobility is a source of pride to the Guild, we accept that Dame Johanna is _extremely_ firm in her desire to continue being known as Doctor Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons for everyday practical purposes." Downey had said, with the slightest of shakes of the head, as if disbelieving that an Assassin could _ever_ spurn social advancement. Downey had added, for completions' sake, that marriage to Sir Ponder Stibbons, KCOSB, also made Mum into Lady Stibbons, but that Doctor Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons was also clear that this should only ever be used when supporting her husband as a reflection of _his_ new social status, and she was in agreement this would be impolite to her husband otherwise. Then he paused, smiled, and added that this, of course, elevated our student, Miss Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons of Raven House, to the position of the _Honourable_ Miss Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, a small detail that would be noted in the amended student rolls.

People had looked at Famke.

"The Honourable Tykebomb." Connie Muthelezi had said, shaking her head.

"Do we bow or curtsey?" Suzie Metcalfe asked.

Famke grinned.

"Neither. Just grovel at my feet." she said.

"How does it feel to be on the same scale as Sandra Venturi?" Thora asked.

Cassandra Venturi had scowled slightly. Her nickname of "Sandra" was something she objected to, as it sounded so unbearably _common_. Of course, everybody now called her Sandra. It was inevitable.

"I'll get over it." Famke said. "Eventually. What's first lesson?"

"Edificeering." Suzie said. "With Miss Band. Hey, isn't she a Honourable too?"

"Her dad was a High Bishop." somebody else said. "Scores the same as a Sir or maybe a Lord. So his kids got to be Honourables."

"Puts Tykebomb on the same level as Miss Band, then."said Suzie.

There was a silence.

"Hey." Famke said. "I might be a bit of a maniac. But I'm not _suicidal_."

 _ **The woods, near Pork Scratching, Lancre.**_

Bekki had just finished a _difficult_ birthing. For a human, this time. She hadn't lost mother or child. But there'd been a moment where she'd glanced round and seen a suspicion of black in the corner of the room.

"Oh, no." she had thought. "Not _here_. Please."

IT IS NOT A CERTAINTY, REBECKA. BUT I HAVE TO BE HERE. JUST IN CASE.

She had accepted this and put out all the skills she had. The mother, a first-time parent, was now stable and the child, a son, looked lively to thrive. With care.

But births like this took it out of you. Not for the first time, she wondered what other job opportunities there were out there and wondered what else she might usefully do.

She wandered on, letting her head clear, and reflected that Alison the minstrel was teaching her how to pick simple themes out on a mandolin. They'd been evolving a routine together where Alison played main theme on the fiddle and sang, whilst Bekki picked out simple repetitive themes on the lower-register strings, something for the soloist to structure her playing around, something that gave it bones to shape the sound. Alison had been appreciative and had said you wouldn't believe what a difference it made. Even if it had just been a case of Bekki picking out the same three chords, over and over again.

"They'd only notice if you weren't there. Or suddenly stopped." Alison had said. **(4)** Bekki also provided support vocals. Alison had asked if she'd like to join her, you know, for an experimental performance, a sort of duet. Verence and Magrat had been very appreciative. Even of the "King Verence" song.

Bekki smiled. It was fun. Something she liked doing. Although the first time she'd seen Alison perform... the new witches in the dining hall at the Castle had been resigned to watching the usual cringingly unfunny Fools' Guild-trained jester act, the sort of dire performance that should have stumbleweed inching its way across the floor **...(5)**

Then they'd heard the violin in the distance, from somewhere above their heads.

And looked up.

Alison was moving with ease, fifty feet up, on a high-wire suspended between the minstrels' gallery and a high rafter. Only... she wasn't using the usual sort of long pole for balance. She was practically _strutting_ up there. And playing a jaunty theme on the fiddle at the same time.

Moving as if the matter of a fifty or sixty foot drop if she got it wrong, with no safety net, was completely incidental. Bekki reflected that Alison had said she'd majored in circus skills at the Fools' Guild, and had only come to Troubador and Jestering skills as a later minor.

And here was she was, combining all three into something new, and innovative, and above all, compulsively watchable... no wonder the Fools had exiled her to a rural backwater to get her out of the way.

The high-wire act seemed to end abruptly; there were shrieks as she leapt off the wire, suddenly. Then a silk rope came out of nowhere and she shimmied down it to floor level. The fiddle and bow in one hand, she bowed to the King and Queen, and then said

"Marry, nuncle, 'tis a dark night in a covey of capons where Master Reynard the souter prowls..."

Alison allowed them a moment of let-down at the realisation that after that, all she had to offer was the usual tedious ancient patter.

Then she grinned, extracted a sheet of paper and tore it up.

"That's the official script." she said. "But we're not going to do any of _that_ tonight..."

She smiled briefly and then put on a hang-dog miserable face.

"I never wanted to be a Jester." She said. "I really wanted to be a Seamstress. You know, all the benefits of men. And none of the drawbacks."

Nanny Ogg laughed louder and more appreciatively than the rest, closely followed by Queen Magrat, as Alison launched into a long stream-of-consciousness routine about _Men, Leave Them Or Hate Them, You Can't Love Them._ It was perfectly pitched for an almost-all-female audience and just on the right side of bawdy **.6(6)** By the end of it, Bekki and the younger witches had learnt a lot, if only by default.

And there had been more songs...

Bekki smiled, breathing out the horrible recent memory of _I'm going to lose this one!_ as she walked. Then she saw the white cat again. It looked expectantly at her, then strutted on. She followed, deeper into the wood, wondering what the cat would bring _this_ time. She followed the majestic white cat for some way, into the deeper darker wood, the cat unhurrying and confident the witch would follow, not looking back. Then it turned and the cat wasn't there any more.

Bekki took a deep breath.

"Okay." she said. "There has to be a reason why you brought me here. I'm ready."

She waited a while, scanning the deep dark shadows cast by the trees, over a not-quite-a-clearing where the ground still carried the last snows of winter. It was a bleak place, but one where light and life persisted, in a stark on-the-edge sort of way.

#then, with no great fuss or drama, a shadow resolved itself into the shape of a witch. Tall, spare, with the pointy hat. It conveyed the essence of Witch, somehow. And it didn't seem as if it fully belonged in this world while seemingly being completely of it.

Bekki watched it, without fear, but with respect. The shadow-Witch, somehow also solid and real, appeared aware of her presence and was regarding her with interest.

Bekki found herself bowing. After a moment or two, the shadow-Witch bowed back.

 _I hears you is doing well. Rebecka. You'll be off to the Chalk soon. To Tiffany._

"That is true, Mistress." Bekki replied, politely. She was going to the Chalk within a few weeks. To learn about lambs and lambing now she'd got as far as she could with pigs. Arrangements were being made.

 _That's a journey. But it won't be the longest journey you'll make. You're taking a longer journey after that._

Bekki listened attentively.

 _The witch goes where she's needed. Then does the job that's in front of her. You're going to a place where witches is wanted._

Bekki politely waited for more. The shadow-Witch nodded. She felt it was all the approval she was going to get. But it was Approval.

Then only the white cat was there. It regarded Bekki for an instant with eyes that were more than feline, then trotted off and dissappeared.

Bekki felt as if she'd just received a high degree of approval for her skills. She also had an idea as to who from. Nanny Ogg had spoken about this sort of thing happneing, a few times.

"It was good to meet you, Mistress Weatherwax." Bekki said. "Thank you."

Then she turned and left.

"Oh. And I hope you're not being _too_ hard on the Gods."

There was the suspicion, right on the edge of hearing, of an appreciative laugh. Then Bekki bowed again and turned and left the clearing.

* * *

 **(1)** Olga was honest enough to admit to the existence of the Baroness of the Chalk, who was also Duchess of Keepsake. And a witch. Then there was Magrat, Witch-Queen of Lancre. And also the future Grand Duchess of the Turnwise March of Zlobenia and Far Überwald. Who in everyday life was Lieutenant Olga Romanoff of the air Police. And a _babiuschka_.

 **(2)** Bekki knew about the bit in the middle that dangled. She tended not to talk about it very much when explaining the metaphor.

 **(3)** Ruth knew Precious Jolson back in Ankh-Morpork. She'd seen Matabele Amazons at the Battle of the Tobacco Farm. She wanted women of that size and disposition in her impi, loyal to _her_. It was a no-brainer.

 **(4)** The unenviable position of the support musician everywhere: _nobody notices the bass player_. Until he (or she) isn't there. Bekki suspected she was meant to be the bass player in the rock band of life. Or would, if that specific vocabulary existed. She did wonder if there was a role for that in music: somebody to do the donkey-work in the background to enable the lead performer to shine even more. She'd raise this with her sister Ruth, who would listen attentively and then come up with a few ideas, immediately grasping: maybe a special sort of guitar, Rebecka, that only plays the low bass notes. You'd only really need four strings… easy to play… (Mum would advance some money to develop the idea and would take them down to Wheedon's Guitar Shop with a blueprint. It would turn out to be another Smith-Rhodes money-spinner, in its own quiet way).

 **(5)** Like tumbleweed, only not as athletic.

 **(6)** I'm thinking stand-up patter comics of the calibre of Jo Brand, Sarah Millican, Katherine Ryan, et c, who structure whole routines around the dynamics of getting on with men and how to navigate around their multiple shortcomings. Beloved by female audiences and even men fond them funny. American readers: think Joan Rivers or Margaret Cho.

 _ **To be continued**_

* * *

 _ **Bonus Piece**_

 **I started writing this with a vague idea in mind, then realised it was getting nowhere and slowing down the main story. I don't want to lose it – can't see where it's going to fit – so it's here as a "standalone".**

Later in the day, Bekki was reminded that while security was usually discreet, it existed here at Hobley's Stud. Guarding the Pegasii and securing their breeding stud was important to Ankh-Morpork. The City Watch kept its advanced Air Station here and there was always a Watch detachment in residence. There was also some sort of treaty in operation: a plaque at the stud gates announced EMBASSY AND CONSULATE OF THE CITY STATE OF ANKH-MORPORK, IN THE KINGDOM OF LANCRE. Bekki knew this meant that some part of the premises were, according to international law, not Lancre at all but Ankh-Morpork. She wondered who the Ambassador was. She suspected that here, it wouldn't be the usual plank-thick Venturi or Eorle or Selachii, who tended to get these postings by default according to Old Law. Lancre was far too important for that. Funny; she'd never thought to ask before. She was usually too busy on her visits here to concern herself with irrelevant things like that.

There was a Watch sergeant leaning on the gate, idly watching the Lancre landscape, nursing the inevitable brew. Bekki hailed him courteously.

"Miss Rebecka." he said, touching his helmet.

"How are you liking it here, Mr Colon?" Bekki asked. The old fat sergeant grinned slightly. He was drawing a lot of sinecure jobs like this as he got older. But retirement was unthinkable. For one thing, a lifetime copper in his last few days of service permitting himself daydreams about what he'd do when he retired was... well, Tempting Fate. Fred Colon had decided to get round this by simply not retiring. Sam Vimes, understanding, was assigning him easy straightforward jobs with not much of a physical component.

"It's okay, miss, and the Goat and Compass does a fair pint, and it makes a change from the City. Looking forward to getting back, though."

They looked out down the road and across a recently cleared strip into the dense trees beyond. Behind the woods, the Ramtop Mountains loomed. The distant muted roar of the River was audible as a background note.

Bekki understood why the trees had been cleared back by a good seventy yards. Security. It established a _kaplyn_ where anyone patrolling the stud could see anything that moved over there, and which might be manoevring into bowshot range. Advance warning. In any case, trees in Lancre grew faster than they could be felled. Or seemed to. Here and there, new saplings were already colonising the cleared strip and taking advantage of the open space.

Standing beside Colon, Bekki watched the ground opposite. She frowned slightly.

"Has anyone ever seriously tried to intrude on this place, Mr Colon?" she asked. "There are lots of valuable things here."

Fred Colon grinned.

"Now and again, miss, they sends people in to test us out." he said. "But you usually gets a warning first. Mr Vimes come out here, and built in a few of the little surprises he uses at home, against Assassins. Said he thought they might be useful. Lord Vetinari sent a few teams of Thieves in, to see how far they could get with their tradecraft. Problem is, round here people don't like Thieves very much. Don't matter if they're Guild or not. None of them got as far as the fence. Local Lancre folk got them _first,_ you see."

"Ouch." Bekki said. Local justice concerning Thieves boiled down to _"One strike and you're hanging from the gibbet by one ankle."_ **(7)**

"And the way I sees it, you don't get to be a Sergeant by not having contacts who'll tip you off if they're planning to test us out." he said. "Mr Stippler from the Assassins' Guild, he's an old Sergeant, he tends to hint if any parties of Assassins is coming out to Lancre. Sergeant to sergeant, see. Not telling tales on his employers."

Fred Colon beamed out over the late afternoon landscape. He had he air of a man who had it all sorted out to his satisfaction.

"No, miss. We'd _know_ if the Assassins was out there waiting for nightfall, to test us out."

Bekki scanned the treeline again. She noted the positions of a few tree-stumps and hummocks in the ground.

"I can see you've got it all sorted out, Mr Colon." she said, appreciatively. "There's an old saying in my mother's country, _Ek is seker dat een van julle daar buite Vondalaans praat. Dit lyk soos iets wat my ma sou beplan."_ **(8)**

Bekki said this just loudly enough.

"Miss?" Colon said, bemusedly. Bekki smiled.

"It means something like, always be prepared, as you never know what's out there in the dark." she said. "At home, sometimes it's Zulus."

Colon smiled.

"Oh, I know _that_." he said. "We got Lance-Constable Sibongile. Useful lad for night patrols. The reason being, nobody can see him coming unless he smiles."

"That was very nearly a racially prejudiced comment, mr Colon." Bekki said.

Colon grinned, slightly abashed.

"True, though."

Bekki excused herself and went to get her broomstick. Best fly before it got too dark..

And then a young witch was flying, low and unhurried, over the perimeter of the Air Station. She wasn't going to be so foolish as to try and _walk_ over the seemingly innocuous cleared strip between the road and the forest. But she was just reckoning other people _would_ , like, for example, student Assassins brought out here for a little practical experience. Trying to scope out a valuable City institution where Sam Vimes had built some of his experience into the defences... it would make up for the fact Fred Colon simply hadn't noticed they were there. Bekki estimated maybe fifteen or sixteen. They'd be sent in in pairs, to see how far they would get, with somebody like Mum or Godsmother Alice observing.

Bekki counted six imperfectly concealed students, either in the cleared kaplyn strip or in the perimeter of the wood beyond, just waiting for nightfall. She shook her head. _They'll learn... and anyway, it isn't my problem. The security gets tested, the student Assassins get nowhere near anything important and learn a few practical lessons, and whoever's supervising them gets a chance to shout at the slow learners._

She looked down again.

 _Besides, I'm just betting the area's rotten with non-lethal traps and tripwires. They don't need to be lethal. Just emphatic. Local people know not to go off the road on this stretch._

* * *

 **The vague resolution would have been Bekki landing her broomstick off-road and setting about doing the everyday witchy things of gathering in interesting herbs and roots and things in the forest, seemingly oblivious of anyone else being there. Out of a sense of mischief, she might have started humming or singing something like**

 _Op 'n berg in die nag, lê ons in donker en wag;_

 _in die modder en bloed lê ek koud,_

 _streepsak en reën kleef teen my._

 _en my huis en my plaas,_

 _tot kole verbrand sodat hulle ons kan vang,_

 _maar daai vlamme en vuur brand nou diep, diep binne my._

Conditioning is a terrible thing; at least one otherwise impeccably concealed student Assassin would have given themselves away by chiming in with the chorus

 _De La Rey, De La Rey,_

 _sal jy die Boere kom lei?_

 _De La Rey, De La Rey!_

This is an observation from reality; try it out in a roomful of white South Africans who are away from home, and therefore prey to the _Irish In New York_ thing or the _Australians in London_ thing or the _Scottish people anywhere outside Scotland_ thing. I've seen it fairly recently… the compulsion to join in with an iconic song…. Somebody put on a Music From Home mix and when Bok van Blerk came up – wallop.

Her point having been made, Bekki would then have exchanged a "hey, howZITT, bra?" with a compatriot, somebody she would know from the social network of White Howondalandians in Ankh-Morpork, and flown away. (Mum would have had words later, I think, and perhaps not just with the student).

 **(7)** Vetinari knew this. Which is why he'd recommended to Mr Boggis as to which Thieves should be sent out to try and test the defences, as he was _sure_ they'd do a selflessly public-spirited task on behalf of the City to the best of their ability. It also made a fairly emphatic point, which was not to annoy Lord Vetinari.

 **(8)** "I'm just _betting_ somebody out there speaks Vondalaans. This is the sort of thing my mother might be involved in." – loose trans.

* * *

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Extract from pm to reader ivanthemostlysane**

 **Hey, good point!**

 **Glad you're liking it so far - a saga currently** _ **All Creatures Great And Small**_ **with extra added Witchcraft, plus an Assassin who paid attention in her anatomy lessons and thought backwards about how her tuition in which bits are which, and what they do, can be used to restore life rather than the opposite ("** _ **Rehuming**_ **"?)... James Herriot plus Hags.**

 **There is a tale to be told concerning the sixth in the line of JSR. Several, in fact. Earlier on there was sideways mention of an incident on the "Kokoda Trail" involving the blondish Johanna. That's a sort of historical and geographic licence: in our world, the Kokoda Trail was a highly contested jungle road in Papua New Guinea, uncontested ownership of which meant that either (i) the Japanese had the main road opened for further island-hopping and an eventual invasion of Australia; or (ii) the Australians then had a springboard to launch a counter-offensive from, and to roll up the Japanese threat to their country. It basically meant continual bloody fighting along the only feasible jungle road capable of sustaining an army (which also went up and down a mountain range), in all seasons, including tropical monsoon, for over a year, until the Aussies won. I moved this delightful bit of jungle real estate to Howondaland and made it a strategic bone of contention between Boer and Zulu, and dropped in a paragraph or two about Young Johanna making her name here. More is yet to be said on this.**

 **Having fun with her Zulu title. Not sure if it has this name outside the UK, but "raspberry ripple" is basically vanilla ice-cream into which raspberry flavouring has been attractively swirled... also looking at cosmetic catalogues for ad-man-speak titles for "strawberry blonde" hair colourants...** _ **("The Excellence Creme Color Pro-Keratin Hint Of Red Death"**_ **).**

 **Bonus Piece:**


	30. Beperkings

_**Strandpiel 30:- Beperkings - restrictions**_

 _ **Beginning to gather loose threads together and knotting ends of subplots. second revison - tidying and section breaks  
**_

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons sat cross-legged on her bed, absorbed in her sketch-book. Every so often she rubbed out a line and amended the drawing. The idea was absorbing her interests, and she was completely focused on getting it right.

Eve the maid, who knew Little Madam's special needs and was prepared to cater to them, had knocked on the door, let herself in, and left a plate of sandwiches and a drink on the table at the bedside. Madam had said it was for the best when Miss Ruth was absorbed in her ideas, just so long as she sat down at table with the rest of the family for _one_ meal a day. Madam insisted on that. _To remind her the rest of us exist_ , Madam had said. _And so I can get her halfway socialised_. The Professor had mildly said he'd been like that as a boy, too. He could get so absorbed in ideas that he'd forget there was a world out there. Forget to eat, that sort of thing.

Madam had looked at him with amusement.

"And at what age did you _stop_ being a boy, Ponder?" she had asked. Otherwise, Madam had accepted that Miss Ruth was a little girl who had a lot of her father in her. It made her, to Madam, easier to understand and deal with if she treated her youngest child as a version of her husband, albeit one who was not absorbed with things of magic.

Regard Ruth, seven years old and rising to eight. The plate of sandwiches sits, largely untouched, on the bedside table. She has somehow got one of the larger bedrooms in the house as her own. People admit the space is needed in a way neither Rebecka nor Famke required.

That half of the room which is nearest the large rimwards-facing window, the half which catches a lot of natural light, is given over to Art and painting. Ruth is naturally a tidy girl: her paints and brushes and tools are racked methodically on a table and a desk, where she can find things easily. The rearward half of the room, more in shadow, is given over to Music.

While she had an early affinity with the piano, and anything with a keyboard fascinates her – the big piano downstairs has been joined by a harpsichord, a virginal and a celeste – musical instruments of all sorts are accumulating here. People tend to give Ruth musical instruments, _you know, its just been gathering dust, and, err_... and they all end up here. The process of creating things to make music fascinates Ruth, and there is, for instance, a partially dismantled Quirmian horn on a table where she has been taking out the valves "to see how they work". The fact she can just as quickly reassemble them, now, is something which is not lost on her parents. Ruth is _clever_ with her fingers. Her mother has tried her out, under supervision, with the mechanism of a crossbow. Weapons aren't _that_ interesting to Ruth: she can fire a crossbow and can do basic moves with a sword, but she'd far rather be painting, crafting, or making music. Her mother was impressed when Ruth diagnosed the problem with a defective crossbow straight away, a technical issue that eluded many Assassin students when presented to them as a test. Looking at it, then handing it back and saying "It's this part here, mummy. It's not engaging properly with this part here and that's why it's locking itself up when you try to fire. I'd replace it with a differently shaped piece. I can draw it for you, to the right size?"

* * *

And _the other thing_ isn't that interesting to Ruth either. Ponder Stibbons had died a death to see his daughter looking intently into a grimoire. Not a particularly potent one, but not one to disregard, either.

He'd then realised she wasn't the slightest bit interested in the spells.

What she _was_ doing was copying the large illuminated capital letters at the header of each paragraph, the ornate marginal designs that contained the text, and some of the sidebar illustrations the original author had seen fit to embellish the text with. And the magic seemed flattered by this attention _and was letting her do it_. **(1)**

* * *

Ruth looked down at the conventional six-stringed guitar lying on the bed, one of several she owned, and then to the sketch on her pad.

 _The sound-box needs to be deeper. To, make the noise, sort of stronger. Louder. Deeper. Everything-er. The body needs to be a slightly different shape. The openings in the top could be a different shape. There only need to be four strings._

Ruth reached down and sounded the two lowest, thickest, strings.

These two strings. Plus two more which have to be bigger and thicker still.

She paused. How did you make guitar strings? Some were gut, she knew. Others were metal. The Dwarfs had worked out how. Ruth decided she'd quite like to find out how, But just four strings. You didn't need to be brilliant on this instrument. Just good enough to pick out simple repetitive themes. To keep the tempo. No more than three chords. Plus the truth.

She frowned. _Plus the truth?_ Where had _that_ come from?

Ruth put down the sketch-pad and picked up the guitar. She remembered going out for a walk with Shauna. Excitement had been provided by flames down near the river, where a building was on fire. Shauna said it was a gambling casino. Probably unlicenced or a gang thing. A turf war. It did no good to ask who had been holding the matches and the oil can.

Ruth had been captivated by the play of the fire, its reflection on the waters of the Ankh, and the smoke billowing over the river. She'd tried to paint it from memory when she got home.

She picked up the guitar. A simple little tune was calling to her.

 _Dum, dum, dum, dum-der-de-dum, dum, dum, dum, der-dum..._

After a while other tracks in her mind suggested how a keyboards player might build on this riff. She could also see what Bekki had meant about the bass line, the skeleton of a piece, underpinning everything. It would be nice to try to build something. To make the idea real.

Ruth sighed. There was never enough _time_. And she was still only seven. People always wanted her to put down the paintbrush, or the sketch-pad, or to come away from the piano, as it was time for something else, child **.** And you must be in time, child **. (2)**

Ruth paused for a moment. Then she put down the guitar and went over to a keyboard. Only a harpsichord; she'd been firmly told that if she wanted to play anything bigger, she'd have to come _downstairs_ for that. But the new tune rose, seemingly from nowhere, in her head, and then spoke to her fingers... _Play me._

Downstairs, Ponder Stibbons heard the harpsichord playing, at once a little bit atonal and then developing a musical logic of its own, and winced slightly. He looked at the thaumometer on his desk. One particular set of readings was nudging on the red. He sighed, with deep resignation. He knew now more of exactly how the magic was working with Ruth. His youngest daughter was a capture-net for inspiration particles. But ones of a certain sort: configured in _just_ the right way to hit the neurons that dealt with musical and artistic creativity.

He groaned, and wondered what to do about it. He now guessed at the origin of the themes she was playing. Brand new here. But they'd also hit Roundworld hard over a twenty or thirty year period. He, Ponder Stibbons, had heard that music there. In California **.(3)** It was hard to forget. One very specialised form had gripped the Discworld for a short time, until the source of the contagion had been dealt with.

He decided to ask Johanna. Once she was out of hospital and fit again, of course. At least Bekki was going to be home for a couple of weeks to help deal with things. Ponder sighed. Witches were called upon to deal with some _difficult_ things...

* * *

Johanna Smith-Rhodes sat up in bed, feeling decidedly groggy. There was a nagging pain in her chest. She tried to remember if this was supposed to be good or not, and allowed herself to relax into a warm fuzzy haze. The analytic side of her, the one that was doggedly refusing to lie there and go with the flow, was saying things like _Hospital. Anaesthetic drugs. Painkillers. Igorina. Remember? You're in no danger._

"I'd lie down, if I were you." a kindly voice said. "Hell, how does it go, now?" There was a rustling as of a piece of paper being located and unfolded, and the same voice said in heavily accented and uncertain Vondalaans: _"_ _Kom lê, mev Smith-Rhodes. Probeer om te slaap. Jou het pas hartchirurgie gehad."_

"Igorina?" Johanna said, speaking with an effort.

"Johanna?"

"I eppreciate the effort. Keep it in Morporkian, would you?"

Igorina sighed.

"Your daughter suggested a few stock phrases for when you came out of anaesthesia. Just in case the Morporkian didn't work. If it helps, she also translated " _Lie DOWN, you silly cow!_ " And _"I'm the doctor here and you do as I tell you."_ With phonetic spelling."

"Ah-huh. Which one?"

"Famke. Rebecka's flying over. She ought to be here any time now."

"Oh, great. You _end_ my daughter to boss me ebout."

"For your own good, Johanna. Did you know I replaced three heart valves _and_ patched up a few cardiac blood vessels, no extra cost? There was a lot going on in there. But it's all tidied up now. Provided you don't take on that one contract too many or get into a war you can't get out of, you'll still be here at eighty."

"Ah-huh. And how long before I'm beck to normal?"

"Did I hear a "Thank you, Igorina, for saving my life" in there anywhere? Must be going deaf. Never mind. Two days bed-rest here for observation, Johanna. And no arguing. Then we discharge you home. Two weeks complete rest. Take it very easy. _**And. No. Arguing**_. Then we'll see. Hearts need tender loving care, sturdy though they are. And this one would have killed you. Tomorrow, the week after, next month, next year, in ten years. But the moment it went, and it would - – bang. Gone. Dead. Which is a shame, as quite a few people out here do quite like you, argumentative temperamental bloody-minded stubborn old bitch that you are."

"End thet's a good bedside menner, is it?" Johanna asked, as pointedly as she could.

"Never said it was." Igorina remarked, shrugging. "But it does the job."

Johanna sighed and closed her eyes, accepting that sleep was probably best right now. Her last conscious memory was of Igorina smiling a smile that was pure job satisfaction.

* * *

"So what _is_ that?" Ruth asked her older sister, curiously.

Bekki stood back from pinning the strange-looking thing, which looked like a large spider's web in a circular frame with dangling feathers, up over her sister's bedroom window.

"They call it a dream-catcher." she said. "Apparently the Indians in the Central Plains use them to ward off bad dreams, and encourage the dreams they _do_ want to have."

"Sounds really nice!" Ruth said. "It looks pretty, too. Thank you, Bekki."

Bekki smiled.

"Anything for my baby sister." she said. She didn't add that research witchcraft – there was always _some_ going on – had looked at the concept, agreed it had some validity to it, and narrowed down the best sort of feathers to use and the best material to make the web out of. The result had something in common with a witch's shambles, although there was no living component woven into it. And her father, after consulting research wizards at the Thaumatalogical Park, had suggested fine wire made from extruded octiron would enhance the effect.

The result would do everything a dream-catcher should and Ruth would indeed have some nice dreams. It would also, their father suggested, intercept and trap a lot of the inspiration particles that were making Ruth's head fizz with ideas and concepts, some of which, he fretted, were the sort that would have Lord Vetinari looking closely at her. Something dangerously close to Music With Rocks In, for instance. If _that_ were to come back for an encore...

Bekki, after hearing about the Music With Rocks In craze, had agreed to help. Although it also made her curious. At least, she reasoned, her sister might have something like a relatively normal seven-year-old life, at least for a while. She thought back to some of the things that had happened to her at the same age. If you were – hah! - _gifted_ , then it was more, rather than less, important to live like a normal girl. She appreciated the things her parents had done for her to help her be normal during the onset of magic. It grounded you. Kept you sane. Whatever was happening with Ruth – Bekki wasn't sure how far magic came into it – it was important to keep her feet on the ground.

She sat and talked with her sister for a while, glad to be back among family. Boetjie was in good hands with Sophie. And this was a family emergency that needed firm handling. Bekki suspected it was _really_ going to stretch her witching abilities.

"Mum isn't going to die, is she?" Ruth asked, anxiously.

Bekki smiled.

"No. Not if she's sensible." she reassured her. "We've just got to make sure she is. What's happened is that there were things with Mum's heart that _could_ have gone wrong. But Igorina, who's really clever about these things, has put them right. But _nobody_ has an operation on their heart and gets up and goes to work the next day, as if nothing's happened. Not even with Igors. We've just got to stop Mum getting impatient and restless and wanting to go back to work. That's going to take _all_ of us. I'm going to talk to Claude later about what he can do. He's clever about these things."

"Mum's going to think we're all ganging up on her." Ruth said.

Bekki smiled slightly. Her sister could be _very_ perceptive.

"Yes. She will. And you know what? She'll be right!"

* * *

Johanna fell into an uneasy doze, then a deep sleep. She hadn't looked and didn't want to look, but signals from her body were telling her that her chest would be one solid bruise. She metaphorically shrugged this off. The discomfort would go, and Igorina had assured her the necessary stitching had been done to the highest Igorina standards and would be barely visible. And only her closest friends would ever get to see it, which was a consideration.

Memories surfaced, recent ones. Or were they just drug-induced hallucinations? Her mind scrolled back...

"Well, Johanna Famke. We haven't spoken directly to each other in _years_."

The voice was kindly, familiar, and spoke Vondalaans. Johanna had looked around her. There was a shrouded body on a table under a bright light. Igorina, gowned and masked, with another younger Igorina and a couple of white-clad nurses. A smaller table, a trolley really, had gleaming tools on it. Large gas bottles stood by with tubes leading from them.

"I really wouldn't look, Johanna Famke. I believe Igorina's lifting a couple of your ribs out of the way so as to get to what's underneath. It's likely to hurt like Hell for a few days after she puts them back, but at least she's putting right in _you_ the things that killed _me_."

Johanna looked across to where her aunt, Johanna Francesca, was standing, disregarded, at the back of the operating theatre.

"It won't look pretty. Trust me. And looking at somebody up to her wrists in your chest is going to be a _hell_ of a shock. I think we should go somewhere else? Leave them to it?"

Johanna reflected that she felt light and insubstantial.

"Am I dead?" she asked.

Her aunt laughed, amused.

"Hell, no. Do you see the fellow with the scythe? Or the girl who covers for him now and again? Or the little rat?" she asked. "You're just in a different place. For now. We've got time to talk. And I don't know about you, but I'd quite like to."

"Rebecka says there's more than one of you." Johanna said.

"Our clever _liewe heksie? Ja._ But I get to meet you here. Because I knew you in life. The others didn't. I have more of a bond with you, you see. And I do look in on you now and again."

Johanna Francesca held out a hand. Johanna Famke hesitated.

"If I touch you." she said, doubtfully. "Does this mean I'm dead and I can't go back? There's a lot I'd still like to do. And see."

"Hell, no! Rebecka would have died _many_ times over if this were the case. You're only dead when the man with the scythe turns up. Or the girl. Or the rat. Besides, look over your shoulder. The blue cord's still there."

Johanna looked. It felt attached to her back like a rucksack. But the blue light, almost a cone emanating from her body, tapered to a cord **,(4)** the other end of which appeared firmly fixed to the body on the operating table.

" _Verskoon my asseblief_." she said. "I'm new to all this. Ponder and Bekki are experts. Definitely experts."

She hugged her aunt for the first time in decades. Her body felt reassuringly solid and warm. And the operating theatre faded. Johanna had a brief impression of the wider Lady Sybil Free hospital and the City beyond it, then she and Aunt Johanna were standing out on the Howondalandian veldt, by a river. There was a sensation of having moved a long, long, way without having moved at all.

"Kuiperskop." Johanna remarked. They were standing on a long low rise nearby, she knew, to her family home. They looked over the river together to the Zulu lands beyond. Everything was quiet here. Pastoral. Cattle grazed.

"Always loved it here." Johanna Francesca said, laconically. "You did, too."

It was, indeed, a peaceful place.

They talked about home and family and people for a while, two Boer women sharing the currency of everyday life. Johanna wondered why her chest wasn't hurting and felt intact.

"Ag. That's body stuff." her aunt replied. "Enjoy it for now. You _will_ feel it when you go back. What's happening to your chest is no small thing, but it's being done by somebody who knows what she's doing."

Johanna Francesca looked wistful for a moment.

"Wish there'd been an Igorina for _me_..."

"So. Being dead?" Johanna asked, wondering how to broach the topic. It wasn't one she'd had to broach all that often. In fact, never. Her aunt smiled.

"You get used to it." she said. "Hey, there are limits to what we can tell the living. Rules apply, unfortunately. But it isn't a bad Afterlife. You get drawn to people you have things in common with. Family. Friends. When it's really your time, Johanna Famke, you'll join us. But it isn't your time justnow."

"Can I ask?" Johanna said. "Reincarnation. Does it happen?"

"That's what they _all_ ask." Her aunt laughed, then looked serious for a moment. "Let's say it did. And I'm admitting nothing, you understand. It would not be automatic. If it happened, do the maths. There are only so many babies born every day. How many discarnate souls do you think are out here? Johanna van der Kaijboutje has been here for over a century, for instance. _If_ she were on a waiting list, if one existed, for another go, _if_ reincarnation happened, then, _maar_ , it would be a long list, do you not think?"

Johanna Famke smiled slightly.

"I believe I understand. But if it happened, is it not possible, as the Ghatians and the Agateans think, to come back as an animal?"

"Ag, would _you_ , given some of the things people do to animals? _Vorbei,_ if you've been human, coming back as a slug or a dung beetle? And where would the larger part of the human mind which is surplus to requirements, as a slug, go?"

"So you enjoy the Afterlife." Johanna said. Her aunt shrugged.

"We make the most of it. There is always Family to watch over. Now and again, a gifted person is there on the living side who you can talk to. The clever Rebecka, who by the way we all love, is one such. Listen to her, Johanna Famke. Your daughter has a wise head."

Her aunt shook her head slightly.

"Your daughter Famke Cornelia, however. Headstrong. Temperamental. No malice in her, but she requires firm guidance. Like _somebody else_ I knew at the same age, I have to say."

"I understand." Johanna said. "And Ruth?"

Her aunt smiled and shook her head.

"You really _were_ making mischief when you chose that name, weren't you? BOSS can't prove you named her for a Zulu Princess. But they _suspect_."

The two laughed together.

"Ruth is an interesting one." Johanna Francesca said. "I sometimes wonder if like Rebecka she would be able to see and speak to us. But she is so absorbed in her own world – and _maar_ , that child has a _gift_ – that the moment has not been right to seek to make contact."

Her aunt then went very serious.

"And speaking of people called Ruth. There is something we need to show you, before you have to go back. I need to take you a long way away from here, Johanna Famke. You have the training and the intellect to understand what you are about to see. It relates to the situation in Muntab."

The two clasped hands again. There was the shimmering sensation of moving without moving. Then they were in the air, looking down on a green fertile country between the sea and a dense distant forest.

"We are on the Gulf of Muntab." Johanna Francesca said. "The furthest border the Zulu Empire has, furthest away from our own land. Currently a large part of its army is gathering here. There will, I fear, be war. Watch carefully."

The Muntabians were, by the standards of the Disc, a modern army, relying in bodies of disciplined men wearing mail and body armour, equipped with a variety of weapons. The Zulus travelled light, were fast and mobile, but their weapons were so much more basic. They were also a culture that spurned projectile weapons, viewing them as not fitting to a warrior, a man who got up close and fought hand-to-hand. The Muntabians had lots of bows and crossbows.

Any battle between the two looked as if it was going to be completely mismatched. And yet...

The Muntabian cavalry, heavily armoured and with long spears, bore down on the Zulu impi. The Zulus had horses, but didn't do cavalry, arguing the only fitting way for the warrior was on foot and that men who relied on horses were disgustingly effete. Johanna expected to see a lot of brave men get uselessly crushed. And then...

The Zulus, waiting and watching the enemy charge, produced bows and crossbows. And Johanna saw _what else_ was new about this impi.

Every second woman had a crossbow. Others had more conventional bows. And they could shoot straight. The Muntabians, who had evidently been briefed not to expect Zulus to have archers or to shoot straight, ran right into the arrow-storm.

"Their iNduna expects her troops to be able to shoot straight, fast, and accurately." Johanna Francesca remarked. "She saw the value of the arrow-storm at a battle over some tobacco fields."

And then... light cavalry appeared and exploted the dissaray of the stricken Muntabians. They were women too, mounted on smaller faster horses, armed with light javelins.

"Not Zulus. Mainly a smaller tribe from the margins of the Empire. Who _do_ believe in cavalry. This iNduna recruited them as the nucleus of her cavalry force."

And then the remanant of a Muntabian cavalry regiment was trickling away as best it could. The Zulu women soldiers were already moving among the casualties, collecting uninjured horses, harvesting captured weapons, and stripping corpses for their armour and equipment. Johana estimated the battle had taken maybe fifteen minutes. And resulted in Zulu victory.

Then she saw the iNduna, in ornate head-dress and lionskin cloak. And recognised her.

"That's their best General." Johanna Francesca said, drily. "Well. Officially only the wife of the commanding General and here as a figurehead, a Crown Princess raising the morale of the troops. But her husband is a man of rare common sense who knows to take his wife's advice. And you know how few of _those_ there are."

"Ruth N'Kweze." Johanna said, shaking her head slightly. " _Jislaik_. I know she was pissed off about being commanded to go home. So she's raised an Army and she's demonstrating she knows what to do with one. Talk about playing catch-up."

"You taught her too well, Johanna Famke." her aunt said. "And that was only a skirmish, not the big battle. Your old pupil's ripped up the rule-book for Zulu fighting. She's writing a new one, in fact. One that works _better_. And while all this is happening out here, a long way away from our border. Imagine this sort of thing being tried out on _us_ , if they get a mind to?"

Johanna winced. She was going to have to remember this, when she woke up. And was this admissible evidence? Her body was currently on an Igorina slab under heavy anaesthetic drugs. For all she knew this could be a very elaborate dream her brain was constructing to take her mind off – literally off, and a long way off - from what was happening in her chest.

It was horribly plausible, though. Ruth N'Kweze making the sharpest point she dared make to her father, through the medium of raising her own fighting Army, and demonstrating that – for now – these soldiers, trained to a Central Continent standard of efficiency, trained in brand new fighting techniques, capable of demonstrating they could take a more sophisticated Army to little pieces inside a quarter of an hour- this new Army is at your command, Father, and loyal to you. For _now_ , that is. And maybe we could then talk about how you dragged me away from a happy life in Ankh-Morpork?

"The _Ingonyamakazi,_ the Lioness Impi, Johanna Famke. When you come back to yourself after your medical treatment, raise the name with Lord Vetinari, or perhaps with the Guild. Their intelligence services will know the name."

"More than an impi." Johanna said, assessing. "Getting on now for nearly triple normal strength. With _archers_. And cavalry."

"In our terms, a brigade." her aunt agreed. "And many, many, young women want to join. It's as if Zulu women and girls have been waiting for this opportunity for a long time."

Johanna Francesca paused. The world seemed to wobble.

"Our time together is ending, Johanna Famke. So nice to see you again, geliefde..."

Then there was a dizzying moment, a little nausea, and Johanna was aware of somehow coming together again with a dull pain in her chest. She felt lethargic, tired, unable to move...

"You're awake, then" Igorina had said. "Everything went okay. No complications..."

"Nnnnghhh", Johanna had replied.

* * *

And now Johanna, transferred back to her home by ambulance-coach, is sitting on the comfy sofa in the lounge. Various people, family and close friends, are in the room with her. Claude the butler has just poured a hot sweet cup of rooibuis tea and is standing to one side attentively.

And everybody, Bekki realised, appeared to be looking at _her._

She swallowed, and stepped forward.

"Mum. You know I love you. You know I respect you. You know I'd normally do as you tell me because usually you're right, it's for my own good, and you're my mother. Errr. Well. Now isn't one of those times."

Bekki sat next to her mother and took her hand.

"Mum, you're in my world now. I'm going to be here for the next fortnight supervising things and looking after you. Seeing you rest and take the apothecary preparations at the right times. As, you know, a witch. And Mum, it would save a lot of time and arguing if you got into a habit of agreeing with me, doing what I ask you, and saying "Yes, Rebecka."

Johanna looked hard at her daughter.

"Do I get a choice?" she asked.

" _No_ , mum." Bekki said, firmly.

Johanna smiled slightly. She looked around the room.

"Yes, Rebecka." she said, eventually.

"So I can tell the Dark Council you're on the mend, then?" Miss Alice Band said. "You'd be surprised how many people are anxious."

"Stick eround." Johanna said. "There's something we need to telk ebout..."

Later on, Johanna called for paper and pen. Ponder heard her out, and wrote a short codicil to his wife's account.

 _I consider in these circumstances that there is an objective reality to this account. There are unique psychic circumstances in this family which mean that deceased relatives, along the blood and family line of the Smith-Rhodes family, are frequent visitors and that at least one member of this family, an accredited Witch, can sustain dialogue with them. My wife, normally incapable of direct conversation with the deceased, has recently been in a situation where she ended up on the borderline between life and death during surgical procedures. In this state, which is well-documented in Wizardry, she encountered and interacted with the spirit of her dead aunt, her father's sister, who showed her current events in the Gulf of Muntab. Astral travel in this world and others is a known magical reality. I would reccomend the relevant interested Parties cross-reference this account, for veracity, against more conventional forms of intelligence reports coming from Muntab..._

Ponder signed his assessment, belatedly remembering to put "Sir" in front of his name, and added the more relevant of his professional qualifications. He then clipped this to Johanna's account of her conversation with her dead aunt.

"Two copies, one to the Palace, one to the Dark Council." he instructed the house-goblin who ran the clacks. "Bring the original back so I can file it."

* * *

Meanwhile, Johanna was in conversation with Alice Band and Rebecka. Bekki, pleased her mother had made contact at long last – albeit in circumstances it might be best not to repeat – listened to the discussion.

"Not good." Godsmother Alice said. "I can see the provocation. Ruth's still livid she was ordered home and forced to marry somebody else, and this is her way of rebelling. You know, sticking firmly to the letter of her instructions, but in such a way that it alarms her father. I suspect she's doing what she's doing just that little bit _too_ well. Could get messy."

" _Ja."_ Mum said. "She's turning things upsidedown there. Teaching Zulus who aren't bound to tredition things like, you know, how to fight _effectively_. Doing things the Empire has never tried before, or tried half-heartedly. That male soldiers do not like, end do not went to do. But with _women_. End I'm worried."

Alice nodded.

"The status quo thing again. Two or three big countries locked in a stalemate as no one has the decisive advantage to win. Then somebody comes up with a game-changer. Which makes big war more rather than less likely. If Ruth's innovations are giving the Muntabians a nasty surprise, what if they get the idea to use them against _your_ people? That means war. Vetinari won't like that. I rather think he'd consider it economical to remove the problem at source."

Johanna nodded, sadly.

" _Ja._ He takes a contrect out on Ruth. Or if not Vetinari, then my people will. She may not hev considered this."

 _ **To be continued...**_

 **(1)** The grimoires in his study had met Johanna. When Bekki was toddling and adventurous and had gone into her father's study, alarming her parents, and raising the possibility that some of the less friendly grimoires might take advantage, Johanna had walked in, glared at the books of magic until she had their full attention, then produced a book and a box of matches. She had ripped a page out of the book she held, set fire to it, and dropped it into a metal wastepaper bin. Then another. Then a third **.(1.1)** Then she'd nodded at the grimoires and walked out again, not a word having been said. They had got the idea, and behaved around the children from then on.

 **(1.1)** The book she'd burnt had actually been the previous year's desk-top diary. But the grimoires didn't need to know that.

 **(2)** I know. Well, my music references can't _all_ be Blue Öyster Cult ones. Other classic rock bands are available.

 **(3)** My tale _**The Many Worlds Interpretation**_. And yes. I know. It stalled on the "Scooby-Doo Gang" going ghost-hunting in Empirical Crescent. This will resume. Ideas are forming on how Penny and Sheldon discover the lost workshop of a great, but insane, artist. (Hmm. What if there is a foreshadowing here of how Ponder and Johanna's daughter turns out? Interesting thought).

 **(4)** Personal Fortean experience: this is how it appeared to me the one time I was definitely aware of the silvery-blue cord. At the risk of being seen as flakey: it felt like a large heavy rucksack on my back. But the further "away" I got from the thing that appeared to be my physical body, the more it stretched and tapered to a thin cord, as if it was actively "extruding". The jury is out as to whether this was "only" a very vivid dream, something conditioned by my expectations from reading about these things, as if my dreaming mind was obligingly constructing something that fitted what I expected to experience. Or it might have been something objectively real, to a given value of "real". I will add it was the last in an overlapping sequence of vivid dreams – which at an earlier stage had involved (touches iron) Elves. And as we know, the Gentry are prone to confusing and deceiving… Worth assigning to one of my characters as her own OOB/NDE!

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **And yes, the Zulus in our world did have bows. But just used them for hunting or as curiosities. They tended to get old, clapped-out or obsolete firearms, in a "running guns to the Apaches" sort of way. Which led to the problems inherent in training to use them – any sort of rifle requires constant practice – and that the technological leap forward, for a pre-industrial society, was not intuitive at all in terms of maintenance and things like keeping the weapon routinely clean. Also – where did ammunition supplies come from in a country that could not make its own? It wasn't so much disdain for the weapons as familiarisation with them.**

 **And Zulus had horses – they were seen as draft animals and useful for getting from one place to another with least effort. Old, fat or disabled warriors were offered them as a courtesy to keep up with the march… which led to younger fitter men seeing them as a mark of weakness and spurning horses as unmanly. Towards the end of the Zulu War they'd seen what British and Boer cavalry could do, accepting that an infantry-only army was at a disadvantage, and were starting to raise cavalry units of their own – but they just got timed out…**

 **Now imagine in a different world a Zulu army where a leader thinks – why not do different….**


	31. Vooruitbeplanning

_**Strandpiel 31 :**_ _ **Vooruitbeplanning (looking ahead)**_

 _ **The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork. Late February:**_

Lord Vetinari raised his head from the documents on his desk. The ever-attentive Rufus Drumknott stood behind and to one side with an armload of fresh files, ready to be provided as needed. The invited dignitaries in the Oblong Office shuffled uneasily. They knew Drumknott acted as a mobile arsenal, ready to furnish ammunition as needed to his master, which would then be unerringly fired at carefully selected targets.

Vetinari smiled briefly at his guests, who included the Ambassadors of Muntab, the Zulu Empire, and Rimwards Howondaland. There was another Ambassador there, a newcomer to the city from a nation that had only very recently opened its borders, and decided to end its long-standing aloof isolation from the world. This Ambassador stood a little distance away from his peers, arms folded, looking at the world through heavy-lidded eyes down an impressive hawk-like nose. He occassionally looked coldly in the direction of his Muntabian and Zulu peers.

Martin Vinhuis, the relatively new Ambassador from Rimwards Howondaland, a man still carefully finding his feet in possibly the most significant diplomatic posting of all, felt he could afford to relax. A little. His nation was not directly involved in the Muntab business and from his point of view, anything that diverted the attention of the Zulu Empire from its border with his nation, and caused it to divert significant military strength in the opposite direction, was to be encouraged. Even so... he had an uneasy feeling concerning the reasons why he had been summoned here. Lots of urgent despatches had gone back and forth, via the Pegasus service, to the BOFA in Pratoria. Mr van der Graaf had stressed the seriousness and the urgency of the situation, and wanted to consult on _aspects arising_. Martin could bet, with certainty, that Vetinari was fully aware of the nature of these despatches and would have opinions to express on one or two _policy directions_ the government was considering.

He looked across. It was no accident Lord Downey and Dame Joan, from the Assassins' Guild, were both present, the two most important voices in the Guild.

"Muntab." Vetinari said. It needed no aditional words.

The Muntabian Ambassador, who to Martin's mind had a tendency to act and speak unwisely, glowered through his full beard.

"We withdrew from the coastal province reluctantly and according to the armistice terms agreed." he said. "Our territorial claim stands, and the withdrawal was ordered as proof of our good intentions and willingness to abide by the decisions of the armistice council."

 _You were forced out_ , Martin Vinhuis thought. _The Zulus gave your troops a succession of bloody noses and kicked your guavas back along the coast. And that brings up a rafter of new problems and headaches..._

"Yes. Your government saw the wisdom of consolidating a new defensive line along the accepted border of your nation." Vetinari remarked. "As did that of the Zulu Empire, who, having made their point, returned, unasked and unforced, to the accepted outer border of the Empire."

He nodded to the Zulu ambassador.

"I believe all parties involved saw the wisdom of the Theocracy of Muntab and the Zulu Empire having no contiguous land border, along which no regrettable misunderstandings or territorial disputes may arise." Vetinari said, smoothly. "The peace agreement jointly brokered by Ankh-Morpork and the Klatchian Empire appears to have restored peace in the area. As well as the decision to ask the Kingdom of Tezuma to administer the debated area, which makes legal, ethical and geographical sense."

Vetinari nodded to the new Ambassador.

"You may not have met his Excellency, Frowning Acapulco, who is now the accredited Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork of the King of Tezuma." he said. "I can now reveal that negotiations have been going on for some time with the King, with the intention of bringing Tezuma into the modern world. The King in Tenochelevenlan has seen the wisdom of Tezuma coming out of its forest fastnesses, and expanding its realm into the coastal strip between the forest and the ocean. The policy of both Klatch and Ankh-Morpork is to support that, and to encourage Greater Tezuma to act as a buffer between Muntab and the Empire."

Frowning Acapulco, a Tezuma of few words, nodded meaningfully to his peers. Muscles rippled under copper-coloured skin. The obsidian-bladed sword at his waist was a courtesy detail.

Martin smiled slightly. After the initial skirmishes and the capture of the Muntabian forts – and how the Hells had the Zulus managed _that_? – the Zulu Army had been set to chase the Muntabians out of the disputed land completely.

And then a third force had intervened. A Tezuman army had appeared from the woods and without any fuss or drama, had interposed itself between Zulu and Muntabian.

The meaning had been abundantly clear. _We don't want to fight you. And we're aware our weapons technically class as Stone Age. But obsidian, such a pretty stone, don't you think? - it's remarkably strong and it takes a really sharp edge. We tip our spears and arrows with sharpened obsidian, too. Want to find out just how sharp it is? If I were you, your lot can bugger off in that direction. Your lot can go voetsaak in that direction. No fuss. No drama. You've had your fight._

And then the diplomatic delegations, from five different countries had arrived, some flown in by Pegasus from distant Ankh-Morpork, some on carpets from Klatch. A suspicious observer might have noted how _co-ordinated_ it seemed, as if the Tezumans had somehow been in contact with Lord Vetinari, perhaps, and encouraged to break their isolation and intervene in the affairs of the wider world. A conference had convened. Ankh-Morpork had not been so impolite as to refer to loans, credits and financial guarantees held in its banks on behalf of several nations. Klatch had not said outright to Muntab, while we share some Gods and commonalities of language and religion, we're not supporting you on _this._

But the message had been received and the warring parties agreed to return to their accepted borders, and leave the debated land in the administration of the Tezuman Kingdom. For now.

"The armistice accord was signed by Prince Nazir Shah for Muntab, and by Paramount Crown Princess Ruth N'Kweze for the Zulus." Vetinari noted. He nodded across to Lord Downey.

"It was fortuitous that one who stands a footstep away from the Paramount King was present to speak for the Empire." he remarked. "One of your graduates, I believe?"

"Yes, my Lord." Downey said, with obvious pride. "We were sorry to lose her when she was recalled by her father. I believe the Princess was very vocal during the negotiations."

"Trained for these things by Lady T'Malia." Dame Joan Sanderson-Reeves said, with satisfaction. "It shows. Damn' fine graduate. In _every_ respect."

"Princess Ruth." Vetinari said. He made a marginal note on a report. "Who I believe raised her own regiment. With some novel ideas as to how a Zulu force might fight, no doubt influenced by her years on this continent. I understand that she captured both the forts built by the Muntabians, which were strategically located to slow down and hinder any anticipated Zulu advance?"

Martin Vinhuis sat up, attentively. He'd heard about that. He just had no clear ideas how the Zulus had managed to capture two large fortified positions so quickly with remarkably little loss of life. On the Zulu side, anyway.

Downey smiled again. The Zulu Ambassador swelled with pride. His Muntabian counterpart bristled.

"Using stratagems which contravene the accepted laws of warfare. Underhand tricks. Her life is forfeit should this un-natural female ever enter the Theocracy!"

Vetinari looked at the Muntabian with attention.

"And to some minds, using women soldiers at all is an offence against Nature. But I can't help but notice those underhand and devious stratagems won her both forts. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Prince Babur. And the possession of those forts makes the methods used to acquire them _entirely_ lawful."

Martin Vinhuis then heard, with increasing horror, that a Zulu force had come to the first fort blocking their way. He heard that the Zulus had calmly settled down to surround and besiege the place, making no attempt _whatsoever_ at a series of increasingly bloody and wasteful human wave attacks on a well-prepared redoubt garrisioned by lots of men who could fire projectile weapons from behind safe walls. This went against everything he'd ever heard about Zulu fighting strategy. See a Redoubt, get a rush of blood to the head, sing a war chant, attack it. And then keep on attacking it until something broke. This new approach went against _everything_ Rimwards Howondaland expected when it fought Zulus. He realised he'd have to report back on this one. With some urgency.

He heard that over several nights, sentries on the fort's walls had just dissappeared. Gone. And during the day, extremely good snipers had picked targets on the ramparts and killed men. Nobody could tell where the arrows were coming from. After a while, men inside the fort were reluctant to go on the walls. Some had glimpsed dark, black-clad shadows moving by night. Morale had plummeted.

Martin Vinhuis looked over to where two black-clad senior Assassins were smiling quietly to themselves, and hazarded a guess. There were _always_ Zulu students at the Assassins' School...

And then the men in the beleagured garrison had cheered as they saw a relief column approaching, dressed in familiar mail and helmets and holding familiar weapons. They'd cheered as the relief force apparently punched a way through the besieging Zulus, who had fled from them.

Then they'd opened the gates to their salvation... who turned out to be grinning black-skinned warriors in captured Muntabian armour and uniforms. The men, Ghatian conscripts from a subject province, had looked to their Muntabian officers for leadership.

And had discovered the black-clad stealthy Assassins had been busy here too. There were no longer any officers to lead them.

And the Ghatians had surrendered rather than fight the screaming women, female demons from Hell. Fortunately, their General, the woman in the big head-dress and the lionskin cloak, had turned up then to enforce decent treatment of captured men. She'd also asked, in an Ankh-Morporkian accent, if anyone could do a decent curry, as she was dying for one. Fortunately Gupta Patel had worked at the Curry Gardens for a year or two and knew what was needed... the woman general had been appeased by a lamb rogan josh. **(1)**

Then she did it all over again at the next fort. Apparently male generals in the Zulu army heard about her minimal losses and suspected she'd been cheating somewhere. Not playing fair. Not following the accepted rules.

Martin Vinhuis heard all this. It fitted the policy directives he'd got from Pratoria.

 _Find out about Zulu Assassins trained in Ankh-Morpork. This Ruth N'Kweze in particular. She is dangerous. We may need to consider a decapitation strategy._

Later on he asked Lord Downey, in general terms, not committing myself or my government to anything, you understand. In what circumstances do you accept a contract on a fellow Assassin, and how much is it likely to cost?

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

"All done, mum." Bekki said. "It's all healing up nicely."

"What does the scar look like?" her mother asked. She hadn't been able to bring herself to look. Bekki smiled.

"It'll just be a very fine line, mum." She said. "You were stitched up by an Igorina, remember? They take a lot of pride in these things."

Johanna grunted. Bekki was washing her hands now after routine nursing.

Bekki had forced herself to be objective and to treat her mother as she would any other patient. _Or impatient, in this case._

"Igorina said to me to tell her when I think she can come along and take the stitches out. It won't be too long now."

Then, to get over the squick and potential embarrassment of having had to see her mother at least partially naked, she lightened the mood.

"She autographed it really nicely, too. Great calligraphy, with a scalpel..."

" _What?"_ her mother shrieked.

Bekki shook her head.

" _Joke_ , mum. Relax. Do you want me to get a mirror, so you can see? It's going to be practically invisible. But still done by an Igorina. She's left one tiny, tiny, little bit slightly ragged, right at the very end. That's her autograph, so to speak. So that any Igor... _ina_...who has to look at it in the future, can see that very tiny little twist and know instantly who did the original job. It's an Igor thing. And that'll be hidden underneath your... well, under your bra, anyway."

Bekki smiled reassuringly.

"You can do your nightie up now, mum. All finished. I was thinking we can have a light lunch? Just talk? Something I need to ask you about."

 _ **Bitterfontein, R.H.**_

The husband and wife who managed the _plaas_ rode off together in a light carriage. They were comfortably dressed in light summer clothes, the young _mevrou_ wearing a very fetching dress in pale green that accentuated her red hair. People watched their departure with little interest. They were probably going off to the big city for a few days' break, an affluent couple who could leave the _plaas_ under capable management for a while. No biggie.

The old _mevrou_ , Mevrou Hendricka, elderly but hale, had nodded to them and laconically said "I don't want to know exactly what you're both doing _this_ time. Just stay safe. If you can."

They had loaded their bags, one or two of which weighed heavier than might have been expected, and kissed her goodbye. Then settled back to enjoy the journey.

A day or so later, at a secluded private estate house near Caarp Town, they had arrived as civilians. Then changed into dark green uniforms bearing officer rank.

Major Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen finished tying up her hair and then turned to Captain Horst Lensen. She adjusted the set of a well-worn fatigue cap, and said

"Ready, _jou bliksem_? Let's go and see what the Crowbar's got in mind _this_ time."

Then the two officers recalled to active service went down to the briefing room that Uncle Charles had made available to them. It was well guarded by soldiers of the Slew and featured, among other things, an iconograph projector.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

"So when do you finally graduate, or whatever, as a Witch?" Johanna asked. She tried not to pull a face at the bland fare of scrambled eggs on toast. Igorina had insisted on a light diet. Dorothea and Claude had been briefed. They made sure Madam got one.

"That depends on two things, mum." Bekki said. "When I think I'm ready. That's important. And also when the people training me think I'm ready. That's Mrs Ogg, Mistress Aching, and Miss Tick. Petulia Gristle gets a say, too."

Johanna accepted this.

"Because I did a lot of training here, with Irena and Olga, Mrs Ogg thinks I'll be ready soon. These things usually get to be known around the time of the Witch Trials, later in the summer. That's when the older Witches agree among themselves who's ready for a Steading of her own, and where."

"So you get Tried. And if they find you guilty, you get a job for life."

"In theory, mum. But if one of the old Witches dies and a place becomes available, there's usually a lot of horse-trading going on as they all try to get one of their own pupils in the job. Mistress Aching warned me about that. It can get _serious_."

"So where do you think you'll end up?"

"Not sure, mum. The other thing to consider is that when Boetjie matures to the point where I can break him to the saddle, I'm obliged to sign up with the Pegasus Service. I was wondering about doing that full-time. You know, to see the world. But I'd also quite like to run a Steading. That's a challenge."

"Just give me a lift when I need one." Johanna said, considering the advantages of a Pegasus pilot in the family. "So. This Steading thing?"

Bekki frowned.

"Mrs Ogg said the training thing is working too well." she said. "When they first started it, they were running short of young witches, and had to do _something_. Now there are more witches coming up than there are Steadings for them. Hardly anything left in Lancre or the Chalk, and a lot of witches are thirty or younger. So not many vacancies coming up. But they've still got to train and guide people, because if you get people with magic and no training or guidance, that can be dangerous. And not good for the girls involved, either. I mean, if _you_ got a lot of self-taught Assassins who the Guild doesn't know about and can't guide, that's bad too, isn't it?"

Johanna nodded.

"Tell me about it." she said. "I was one. Till the Guild got me."

"So, anyway. Girls trained in Lancre have got to go further afield, or else to get other jobs. The Air Police can only take so many. You're getting Lancre-trained witches all the way out to Aceria now. Even in Fourecks. It's a big network, granted. And Nanny Ogg has this knack for knowing where everybody is. She doesn't forget."

Johanna nodded.

"So where do you think _you'll_ go?"

"I've been thinking about this, mum." Bekki decided not to mention the meeting in the woods that had got her thinking.

"There's _one_ country out there with no witches. Aunt Mariella says she's always willing to put me up for a few months if I want to give Howondaland a go. And Ouma Agnetha said there's always a place for me, and she thinks I'd easily pay my board and lodging if I went to the family _plaas_."

Johanna looked hard at her oldest daughter.

"You _do_ know it's illegal at Home?" she asked. "And you probably have a BOSS file by now. I'd be surprised if you didn't. They'll have noted you're a witch. BOSS are also the witch-hunters, you know. That stupid ancient law we brought with us from Sto Kerrig and which nobody's ever bothered to repeal. Besides. They do not like women with too much independence who think for themselves. Which to my way of thinking, defines a witch. You could be headed for trouble. A threat to State Security. BOSS do not like that."

"Maybe that's why I _should_ go, mum." Bekki said. "Start changing peoples' minds. The witch goes where she's needed. And does what she has to when she gets there."

Johanna smiled slightly.

"You're headed for trouble, meisie." she said, shaking her head slightly. " _Eish_. You would not be my daughter, I suppose, if you weren't."

"Godsfather Julian's in politics now." Bekki said. "Maybe, I don't know, he could try to get that law repealed. Or something."

"And in the thirty or forty years _that_ would take? Ah well, at least you have a family with a bit of influence, who can cover for you and plead ignorance. But beware of asking Uncle Charles for favours, like smoothing over any legal problems you get yourself into. He'll grant you the favour, but he won't forget. Then _he'll call it in_. Watch out for that."

Johanna paused, and added

"Trust Julian, though. Decent man. Straight player. Despite the handicap of birth."

Johanna smiled at her.

"When you go, it'll be after midsummer, when your Pegasus might be ready to fly? And you can be back here so quickly. Always assuming you get a Feegle to navigate you, one who is actually capable of locating his own bottom after two tries."

Bekki winced.

"Actually, mum..." she said.2 **(2)**

 _ **Jacarinthia House, Caarp Town, R.H.**_

General Hans "Crowbar" Dreyer always looked, to Mariella's mind, like a scaled-up Feegle. The Commander and Director of her country's Special Forces had an official remit: he commanded the Selous Slew, an élite brigade of the Army that did _specialised_ tasks in the service of the nation. He also worked in the hazy area straddling the military and the political, interpreting deliberately vaguely-worded reccomendations from senior politicians which, unnaccountably, were rarely put into writing. He also advised the politicians on how certain delicate situations might be interpreted, and if necessary resolved, with a minimum of fuss and how they could be plausibly denied if inconvenient people, like other politicians, foreign agencies, or journalists, got to hear about them. Intermediate locations like Jacarinthia House, neither an Army barracks nor a politician's office, were made available for private and discreet little conferences like this. Their host, Mr Charles Smith-Rhodes, understood such things well enough, and _facilitated_.

As the General moved in the front of the room like a tightly compacted ball of genially directed aggression, Mariella was not surprised to note other people were present for the briefing as well as uniformed personnel. She recognised Commodore de Noorde of the Navy, a man she'd first met while travelling in Smith-Rhodesia some years before. Their paths had crossed several times since. She nodded to Piet Retief, the local chief Assassin in her country. Retief and the Crowbar had a professional arrangement, should the services of the Guild be required to augment the talents of the Slew for any of those _tricky_ jobs. Mariella appreciated this. She and Horst were reserve officers who could be recalled to duty at any time in the service of their country. But Retief had pointed out that they were also licenced Assassins, and therefore the Government of Rimwards Howondaland should respect this with regard to the appropriate professional fee chargeable to the Guild, should any duties undertaken by Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen (Black Widow House) or Mr Lensen (Viper House) be held to be overlapping the accepted professional competences taught by the Guild. After all, they were civilians now, and not full-time soldiers who could be understood to be working pro-bono as a patriotic duty to their nation.

An appropriate scale of fees had indeed been worked out, and Mariella and Horst's marital bank account was very healthy indeed.

Mariella noted two other uniformed people who, for the moment, _were_ full-time soldiers and therefore providing their services pro-bono as a patriotic duty, despite also being graduate Assassins. It was a fine distinction. She smiled, sympathetically: she'd once been there herself, taking all the risks for a hundred and eighty rand a month, her officer's pay. But if Young Johanna and Emma Roydes were also on board, this looked _serious_.

And Uncle Pieter was here, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. And Cousin Julian, who Mariella understood worked for Uncle Pieter as, in his own words, "a sort of elevated office junior". She read the faces. Uncle Pieter was looking grave-digger serious. Irrelevantly, she recalled that in old Kerrigian, the name "van der Graaf" came from the same root as "gravedigger" or "sexton", indicating the occupation a long-gone ancestor would have had in Sto Kerrig. Uncle Pieter certainly had an undertaker's face on. And Cousin Julian looked worried, tinged with "grim". She wondered what was making him so serious. _Ah well, I'll find out._

"Well, thank you all for attending!" the Crowbar said, his face splitting into the usual infectious grin. People would follow a grin like that into Hell itself. Sometimes they _had_. It came with the job.

"We've got a _situation_. The reason you're all here is to contribute your thoughts about this particular situation, and to kick a few ideas around as to how we can do something about it. The slides you are about to see are of some people we currently find very interesting indeed. We're also going to fill you in as to their current activities and whereabouts, and as to _why_ this country finds them worrying. Some of you in this room will know, and will have interacted, with some of these people. At school, perhaps. If there's anything you can add that _isn't_ a part of their intelligence files, speak up, as we want to know."

Mariella was on her guard straight away. She sat up straight. And tried not to be too appalled as a succession of possible candidates for bespoke personal attention came up on the screen.

They included her old schoolmate and almost-friend Sissi N'Kime. Her rival on the running track, and the girl who had brought Mariella fruit and flowers in her hospital bed that time, whose actions on the day might well have saved Mariella's life from an assassin.

And to cap it all, there was...

"Bloody dangerous woman." the Crowbar said, drily. "The Paramount Crown Princess of the Zulu Empire. Too bloody clever by half and capable of a lot of joined-up thinking. It might be necessary to send her a care package. Ideas, anyone?"

Mariella, appalled and trying not to show it, looked at Horst. Both tried not to look at Cousin Julian, whose face had gone to stone, unreadable...

 _ **Lancre Town. A flashback, insered to heighten the dramatic tension at this point. Maybe two weeks previously.**_

"So." Nanny Ogg had said, pouring two cups of tea. "You need to go back home for a week or so. To look after your mum, who is recuperating after allowing an Igorina to rummage around inside her."

Nanny looked sympathetically at Bekki.

"Talk about _their hands in your life_. Although if my ticker was playin' up and the clockwork was wonky and the springs needed fixin', there's worse than Igorinas to take it to. And at least she got to find out."

Nanny nodded to a corner of the room that non-witches might have dismissed as empty.

"Good to have close family, isn't it? Although it was bad luck on _you_ , love, when _your_ heart sprang a leak."

"These things heppen, Mrs Ogg." said Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes. "End thenk you for ellowing me into your home."

Nanny beamed a welcoming smile.

"You're here for our girl." she said. "I ain't likely to banish you out, an I? 'Sides, I heard the commotion out in the wash-house. One of the old kings got a bit _fresh_ with you, did he?"

" _Ja_." said Johanna Francesca. "Your former monarch made en unwise presumption. I hed to tell him ebout one of the basic principles of being from a Republic. Which is thet there is no such thing es a commoner end no such thing es a monarch. Therefore if a woman then punches a man who is ecting unwisely out of a sense of privilege, it is _his_ look-out."

Nanny nodded, sagely.

"You did right, love. I had to clock him with a leg of lamb once, while he was alive. You'd think bein' dead and not havin' a body no more, they wouldn't, wouldn't you? No glands. But some people don't learn, livin' or dead."

"Perheps the _ghosts_ of glends are now giving him discomfort, Mrs Ogg. Efter I hit him."

Nanny Ogg laughed loudly.

"I can see where our Bekki and her mum get it from, no mistake!"

Then she turned to Bekki. Seriously, now.

"It's not unknown, love." she said. "Personally I don't think Esme died, in the accepted way. Oh, she got the advance warning. Death turned up for her. But like your auntie over there pops back to keep an eye on your family. Esme treated Lancre like it was her family. _All_ of Lancre. So she nips back once in a while. To stay in touch. If anythin' interests her. I'm just bettin' _you_ interest her. First Witch we've got from your country. New ideas, see."

"Nanny, you're not saying _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods_." Bekki observed.

Nanny Ogg shrugged.

"Oh, I'll join in with that in public." she said. "Disrespectful, else. But there's really no point. 'Cos I suspect Esme never really left. But she's picky who she shows herself to."

Nanny gathered herself.

"I'm forgettin' my manners." she said. "Miss Smith-Rhodes, I should be offerin' you a drink?"

Bekki realised Nanny wasn't speaking to her.

"That would be very kind, Mrs Ogg." said Johanna Francesca.

Nanny grinned. "Got some in the kitchen. And I'll need matches too. Hold on a tick..."

Bekki, almost alone in the room, knew she shouldn't. But the temptation was too great. She started to Look at the cluttered knick-kncks and tasteless ornaments on every flat surface. Most of them she could discount after the briefest glance. But there was one thing, hidden inobtrusively away behind ranks of tat, that drew her. It looked like an hourglass. At least, there was sand in it. But it wasn't moving. It radiated something Other...

She knew not to touch. Touching it, she knew, would be not just impolite but terribly unwise.

"Mrs Ogg's secret, _liewe hecksie_." Johanna Francesca said, softly, from behind her. "Leave well alone."

Nanny Ogg had very sharp hearing.

"Mrs Ogg's secret?" she repeated, a little sharply. Then she relaxed.

"Okay, young Bekki. I don't know if you've worked it out. But I'm guessin' you will, given enough Time. Let me sort out that drink for you, miss Smith-Rhodes. Sorry it ain't klipdrift or whatever you call it. But it's good honest Lancre scumble..."

Nanny poured a viscous oily liquid into a glass. Even from yards away, there was a smell that might have begun as apples. She stood well back, and struck a match at arm's length, holding her face away. There was an actinic _Whoomph_.

"Jislaik. This is _strong_." Johanna Francesca observed. " _Dankie, mevrou Ogg._ "

"You're welcome." Nanny said. She turned to scrutinise Bekki. Bekki tried hard not to blink or turn her eyes away. Then the old witch smiled.

"Can't keep it from you." she said. "I 'spect you're wondrin' why I'm still here, same age as I was when you first met me all them years ago?"

Nanny poured another scumble for herself. Bekki politely refused one.

"Very wise. Anyhow, young Rebecka. I reads you as a girl who can keep quiet. Knows how to keep a confidence. 'Sides, you're off to Howondaland after you've spent time down on the Chalk. When Tiffany says you're fit, and she will."

Nanny took a deep breath.

"I reckon I'm a hundred and nine years old, as of last birthday. You tends to lose count after a while. By rights, should have gone when I was eighty-nine. But I did this midwifing job, see. A strange one. Birthed twins who were not twins. Couple I did this for – well, witches only sometimes get paid in money. You knows that yourself, Bekki. They were in a position to recompense me for the time. And I knows exactly how much time."

She nodded to the strange not-an-hourglass.

"Eighty-eight minutes. But that clock only starts to tick when I makes the decision and says the words. The man with the scythe knows that. He said as how he'd pop back when I'm ready to go. Well, eighty-eight minutes after I decide I'm ready to go."

"So you're, err, indefinitely prolonged?" Bekki asked.

The old witch grinned.

"Not indefinitely, Bekki, love. I reckon as how it'd look _odd_ if my great-grandkids grows up and becomes grandparents themselves, and I'm still here. People might start to talk. I reckon if I outlives Eumenides Treason by a good few years. Set a record. For posterior. One day I'll decide to have a Goin' Away party. A _big_ one. Invite every witch on the Disc. Even Lettice Earwig, if she's still around. Have a damn good time and then, eighty-eight minutes before the End. I says the words. Pour Death a drink on me, clink glasses with him, and move on. Go tourin' with Esme."

Bekki digested it. Then she smiled.

"Don't forget to invite me, Nanny."

"I won't, Bekki, love. You'll write to me from Howondaland, when you go?"

 _ **Jacarinthia House, Caarp Town, R.H.**_

"So let's get this straight." Emma Roydes said. "Crowbar. You want us to go out and inhume one of our old teachers?"

Hans Dreyer permitted informality from his junior officers. He grinned at Emma.

"Not this very instant justnow, no." he said. "What I'm asking for, Piles, are ideas as to how we _can_ do this. Make a plan. And you all know these people better than I do. Hell, you've met them!"

Mariella cleared her throat.

"Sproetjie?" Crowbar invited her.

"Sir. This might sound irrelevant. But I cannot help thinking that maybe even at this very moment, there is a room in a kraal somewhere in the Zulu Empire where iconographic pictures of people _in this room_ are being flashed up on a screen. Intelligence files are being read and added to. And people very like us are kicking around ideas of what to do about these very dangerous people. So perheps we _should_ get in first."

Crowbar Dreyer nodded appreciatively at Mariella.

"Glad to see you're thinking about it, Sproet. And _your_ feelings on the matter?"

"You are asking me to accept a contract – which is where we are heading – on people I knew in Ankh-Morpork and have personal and professional respect for. Please excuse me for having mixed feelings on the matter."

"Mariella." Piet Retief said. "You're an Assassin. You're a _good_ Assassin. The Guild teaches us to set aside personal feelings and to be completely professional. You accept the job. Once accepted, it could be your best friend. A family member. A sibling..."

"My best friend? She'd tear my throat out if I tried."

Piet reflected on who Mariella's best friend _was_. He accepted the point.

"Ja, but in her case, only if the money was right..." Mariella paused. "And my _sibling_. Even as a forty-odd year old mother of three, she'd have no difficulty in tearing my arms off and hitting me with the stumps. Just to make a point. She's _older_ than me, more experienced than me and _meaner_ than me. Which leads me to a point that four of us in theis room are only too aware of. It's an Assassin thing. Ruth N'Kweze taught us. If you want more experienced, cleverer, meaner and better at being an Assassin than any of us – look at Ruth. We all _know_ that. That's not admitting defeat. That's stating a very obvious fact."

Three other Assassins in the room indicated their agreement to this.

"I can see there's a psychological thing going on here..." Crowbar Dreyer said, slowly.

"You said it yourself, sir." Horst Lensen said. "In the Intelligence briefing. There have so far been thirteen known assassination attempts on Ruth N'Kweze. Since she became Paramount Crown Princess. Mainly from half-sisters who are jealous as Hell she got to be the most senior Princess and closest to her father. Other attempts from half-brothers, who are scared she's got it in mind to become Paramount Empress. And she's still here. A couple of half-sisters have, shall we say, _vanished_ from Court. And at least two half-brothers. That says to me she's got some serious security looking out for her. Probably Guild-trained."

"Definitely Guild-trained." the Crowbar agreed. "Miss Sissi N'Kime. Commoner. No Royal blood. But a trained Assassin and utterly loyal to the Princess. Acts as her personal bodyguard and security chief."

He turned to Mariella.

"Not one of your old teachers." he said. "A classmate, in fact. Sproet. Do you think you could take her down if you had to?"

Mariella tried not to wince.

"On a good day, maybe." she said. "But I'm not completely certain. When we competed on the running track, it was fifty-fifty as to who crossed the line first. And, well..."

"I know." the Crowbar said. "You went to the same school. For seven years. You were friends, almost."

"Almost." Mariella agreed. "But we both knew if it came to it, and we had to fight, on _this_ continent..."

"Hold that thought." Crowbar Dreyer said. "Mr van der Graaf, you look as if you want to speak?"

"Ja." said the minister. He could keenly feel the agitation various people in the room were trying to supress. He felt something of it himself, in fact. He'd known Ruth N'Kweze himself in Ankh-Morpork, and he had a liking and respect for her. He also knew exactly why Julian was looking miserable.

"Let me give you the political perspective. Yes. It is alarming and highly undesirable, from a point of view of national security, that the Zulu Empire is evolving a better Army. One that is better at fighting. As we saw recently in Muntab. They have always had numerical superiority. _We_ have relied on being better soldiers, man for man, and indeed now, woman for woman. We have looked for a qualitative superiority in terms of training, weaponry and equipment. And in tactical doctrine. Realising that we may not be able to rely on this for much longer is a shock.

"Therefore it is correct, and prudent, to have this discussion as to how we might remove the minds behind their change of outlook. Were this to happen, the conservative leadership of the Zulu Empire would happily disband the femal impi and pretend it never happened, as well as to insist on the good old ways. Which suits us.

"But let me caution you concerning the temendous risk involved in this enterprise. If we launch a decapitation strategy on a very highly placed Zulu royal. And we fail. And we are found out. Do you think this is _not_ a casus belli for all out war? And if we succeed. And the finger of blame is pointed at us. We have then succeeded in assassinating the most important daughter of the Paramount King. And the likely result of this? We cripple their Army's prospects for improvement and modernisation, by removing the mind behind it. But at the price, may I suggest, of all-out war.

"Thirdly. Many of us lived in Ankh-Morpork. I myself was there for over twenty years. Princess Ruth, the subject of our discussion, was also there for nearly twenty. I read her as not so much a Zulu by the end, but an Ankh-Morporkian of Zulu origin. That city changes people. In her case, it changed her to a thoughtful young woman who was prepared to sit and talk to White Howondalandians and understand our point of view. Similarly, it generated people, some of whom are in this room now, who are prepared to sit and talk to Zulus, who understand _their_ point of view. If it comes to direct talks with the Empire, I would prefer to talk to a well-educated and urbane young woman who lived on the Central Continent, and whose world-view is not a completely Zulu one. To me, that is preferential to the alternative. Oh, and also consider Patrician Vetinari's likely opinion of anyone who foments war in this continent.

"If _realpolitik_ makes it necessary to remove the Princess and others like her from the field of play, then we must. But let it be clearly understood this should only be the very last, desperate, option, when all else has clearly failed. Thank you."

Piter van der Graaf sat down, his point having been made.

Crowbar Dreyer breathed a resigned sigh.

"So let's consider this as a theoretical exercise." he said. "so we have some sort of a plan made if we need to bring it out."

He nodded to a woman whose hair appeared, on the lamplight, to have a distinctly pinkish tinge.

"Johanna?"

Happier now that it was clearly only a paper project, the group discussed plans for decapitating the Zulu Empire...

 _ **To be continued:-**_

* * *

 **(1)** with almond pilau rice and a keema naan bread.

 **(2)** Bekki had a horrible suspicion she was going to be stuck with Wee Archie Aff The Midden, whatever she did about it. The worst thing was that she actually _liked_ the cheerful young Feegle, despite his navigational skills being akin to those of a concussed flatfish. One that persisted, for instance, in swimming in entirely the opposite direction to the rest of the shoal. It was another downside to the prestige of getting a Pegasus of her own. That and the Watch training that Commander Vimes had promised to give her, as a necessary condition of (nominal) service with the Air Police. She'd seen Sergeant Detritus with Watch recruits. The idea of getting this as a sixteenth birthday present didn't exactly fill her with delight. Bekki hoped she'd get to do a lot of this with Olga and Irena. You know, training specific to her arm of service.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**


	32. Omakhelwane abaseduze die Mense Langsaan

_**Strandpiel 32:**_ _ **Omakhelwane abaseduze (die Mense Langsaan) – next-door neighbours**_

 _ **Finally! time to get a new chapter fit to publish! It's all plotted. I just need the time. Setting the background for events when Bekki moves to Howondaland. What do you call emigration when you're going to the nation one of your parents was born in? Also catching up on Ruth N'Kweze, who has been busy.**_

 _ **Late March. The Chalk:**_

Bekki stretched out on her back in the grass and heather, appreciating the clouds above her in the blue Spring sky. The rush of lambs, and ewes needing attention, had slowed now, which gave her time for little luxuries like this – even if most of the clouds up there looked like sheep, however hard she tried to make them look like _other_ things. In the previous five weeks, she had learnt many things about sheep, from a knowledge-base of pretty near zero. The principal thing she'd learnt was that compared to pigs, they were pretty stupid animals.

At least the usual pregnant ewe could be relied upon to get on with it without too much human intervention. But when they needed help – they _really_ needed help. She'd been doing a lot of that lately. At all hours of the day and night. This had been on top of the usual run of witch things, to do with navigating and mediating all aspects of the human world. She contemplated her hands and arms. Any woman looking for a skin cream could do worse than deal with sheep. Tiffany Aching had said it was down to the lanolin in the wool. If it bothers you, wear gloves. Bekki thought she needed to. Her skin was marvellously soft, but on the other hand, it felt even the slightest scratch. And up here there were a lot of things like thistles. It also made the continual washing, absolutely necessary in between ovine patients, into something of an ordeal.

Tiffany Aching had arranged a room for her down in the Aching family farmhouse. It had apparently been Tiffany's childhood bedroom. Bekki just appreciated a bed being there that she could collapse into, now and then, as time permitted. The Aching parents were used to putting up a succession of young trainee witches seeing practice, and had happily accomodated her. Even if the weapons had raised a few eyebrows. Bekki had realised people down here didn't _routinely_ go armed. She'd got so used to the machete hanging on her hip that she'd forgotten about it. That, and the Howondalandian veldt clothes that she wore as everyday working gear, had caused a stir. Tiffany had said that at least Bekki wore the pointy hat, so everybody would _know_. Therefore she was properly dressed.

Up here, outside Tiffany's shepherding hut, the air was clean – definitely thicker and more substantial than up in the high mountains - and you could see a long way. The spines of the Ramtops in the distance, out to Hubwards. Lancre was up there, she reflected. A long flight, and generally an upwards one, which included the roller-coaster ride of the Lancre Falls as they plummeted to the lower hills.

The thing with the sword had been accepted, when Bekki had demonstrated one of the essential and strictly agricultural uses of the machete. There was a patch of stubborn growth that Mr Aching had been putting off clearing for some time; with energy to spare, she'd pitched in and had chopped a good quantity of it down one afternoon. It helped that she was mad at one of the Swindells family, who was stubbornly refusing to take her advice concerning a little problem. Now all Mr Aching needed to do was to get in there with a spade and a fork and grub up the roots. Mrs Aching was currently prompting him on the need for this, regularly.

"That girl's _good_ with that sword-thing" was a piece of information that had spread far and wide. And "Don't get her annoyed. You should have heard the way she blasted Tom Swindells for not taking her advice."

There'd also been an informal reception at the Castle. Tiffany had made the introductions. Bekki had found the Baron to be awkward underneath a forced fifteen-a-side-player bonhomie, as if he were trying to superimpose several roles on top of each other, none of which quite fitted. She had bowed courteously whilst trying hard to refrain from shouting "Look, just be yourself! It's easier!" at him.

Eventually the Baron had grinned and nodded down to her sword.

"I'm not going to be so impolite as to ask if you can use that." he had said. "I'm almost tempted to ask if you'd spar a couple of rounds with me."

The Baroness, who was also a Witch, had then leant over and whispered something urgent into his ear. The Baron turned and looked at Bekki. Thoughtfully.

"I've just been reminded that your mother taught you how to use weapons." he said, thoughtfully. "Perhaps another time, miss Smith-Rhodes?"

Tiffany had smiled slightly.

And the news of whose daughter Bekki was had also travelled. Bekki didn't mind this too much; it made some things a lot easier. But she'd have quite preferred to be getting respect on her own merits and not _just_ because her mother was a big-name Assassin.

Then another ailing ewe was brought to the shepherding hut and the break was over...

 _ **The Kraal of the**_ _ **Ingonyamakazi**_ _ **,**_ _ **The Zulu Empire.**_

"So _that's_ Crowbar Dreyer." Ruth N'Kweze said, thoughtfully. The iconograph projector flickered in the heavily blanketed room. "I've heard a lot about him. Just never got to look at his face before."

She studied the face on the screen. Good-looking, affable, friendly, the sort of face women would warm to and men would feel flattered by, if that face addressed you by name and offered to stand you a drink. But, she realised, the most dangerous men were often the ones who didn't _need_ to advertise that they were dangerous. And Hans Dreyer was very dangerous indeed. Monsieur le Balouard had spoken very highly of his professional competence and described him as the sort of lethal bruiser you would want on your side both in the fight, and in the bar afterwards.

If you looked really closely, there was something in his eyes. Ruth N'Kweze had been a Special in the City Watch for a while. She'd learnt to recognise _bottle-covey_. Hans Dreyer had a definite streak of bottle-covey about him, the high-functioning kind who had become a senior military officer.

"Beware of any unexpected parcels in the mail." Sissi N'Kime said, drily. " _Care packages_ , they are called. As apparently, they truly take care of people."

"Ah, the subtle White Howondalandian sense of humour." Ruth remarked. "I do not think we are in that sort of danger. Dreyer is efficient. He knows my mail – _most_ of my mail – is opened by others. He would not go to the significant trouble of getting a parcel bomb here, just to blow up my office clerk."

Sissi looked doubtful.

"He has other means. He is clever and resourceful."

Outside, the sound of units of the Lioness Impi being drilled came back to them, muffled, through the thick black drapes covering the windows.

It was starting to get hot inside the room. Ruth sat through the rest of the briefing. It concerned dangerous people on the Rimwards Howondalandian side who might well have a direct interest in spoling her day. Ruth sighed. She knew most of them. Personally. She'd helped educate a few, in long-gone days at the school.

"Finished?" she asked Sissi. "Let's get these drapes off the windows, shall we, and open a few up?"

"As you command, highness."

There was a pause as Sissi shouted for maids and relayed instructions.

Zulu architecture didn't usually go in for windows. Ruth had realised, on arriving Home, that some things had better bloody well change, and fast. She'd once spoken to Teppic, a Guild graduate and former Pharoah of Djelibeybi, and heard about his culture shock on returning home after years at the Guild School to a nation slow to change and reluctant to adapt. She knew where he was coming from now. Her desire to modernise, in a small way, and introduce a few Central Continent refinements to enhance her quality of life here, had met with incomprehension and a little guarded reluctance, even hostility. Undaunted, she'd asked around the various foreign Embassies around the Royal Kraal. The Ankh-Morporkians had been delighted to assist and had introduced her to the architect who had built their Embassy. It had cost her a lot of money, but what had emerged had been a building that combined Central Continent ease with the ability to withstand whatever Howondaland could throw at it. The fact it looked a little like a White Howondalandian _huis_ was, she considered, probably coincidental. And it meant she could sleep in an actual _bed_ at night.

Her father, the Paramount King, had grunted semi-disapprovingly and said "at least build a kraal around it."

The kraal had emerged, a new settlement. It was now the heart of the Lioness Impi's base depot, with a triple wall and multiple gates. Anyone seeking to attack needed to get through those three walls and the best part of three thousand soldiers who had all pledged loyalty to their iNduna. The new kraal was called the _Lioness's Den_.

Ruth waited for the maids to fold the blankets and leave. Then she turned to Sissi.

"Okay. Dreyer is going to have a hard job getting people here. We're a few hundred miles from the border. I don't care how good they are. White Howondalandian soldiers in our country will not escape detection for very long. If he uses the direct route, they'd have to cross a few hundred miles of populated country and pass near enough to quite a few military kraals."

Sissi looked doubtful.

"Johanna Smith-Rhodes managed it." she pointed out. "And she wasn't even an Assassin then."

"Yes. But the man Johanna was after was only about forty miles from the border. She performed a forced ride by night. In the middle of a tropical storm. With only a handful of soldiers. While people were indoors keeping dry and not looking to see what else was coming down apart from thunder and lightning, she got her man. Then rode back."

Ruth looked reflective for a moment.

"Storm season's coming up, isn't it?"

Sissi nodded.

"Right. Good point, Sissi. Thank you. We make absolutely bloody sure all guards and patrols during storms _will_ go out. They pay attention. They patrol diligently. They do _not_ retreat to the warm and dry as soon as they can. Ensure all soldiers are trained for this. And I know it's not angry night-gods that kill you. It's lightning. Best we issue night patrols during storms with those clever new ceramic weapons. They might not be assegais – I'm still working on that – but at least they're stabbing spears. And how advanced are we on obsidian weapons? I was impressed with those Tezuma we met in Muntab."

They discussed weaponry for a while. Ruth wanted _lots_ of options other than the traditional assegai-and-knobkerry. There was, for instance, a fletching shed in the kraal, staffed by members of the Armourers' Guild from Ankh-Morpork. Ruth's share of the booty from the Muntab War was funding a lot of R&D. It had established a small manufacturing plant for arrows of all kinds, for instance, with workshop facilities for maintaining projectile weapons.

"Okay, so we've worked out that in the next month or two, we need to watch out for riders on the storm." Ruth said, decisively.

"Killers on the road." Sissi said. Then she frowned, wondering where _that_ had come from. **(1)**

"And I'd quite like them to be _our_ killers." Ruth remarked. " _Better_ ones."

"We've got some good ones." Sissi said. "You know, Highness, since the Empire started sending students to the Guild School, eighty-nine Zulus have graduated as Assassins. Fifty-three of them have pledged their allegience to _you_. We can be absolutely certain of only forty-three of them. But we've got practically all the women. And a lot of the rest are reluctant to get involved or to move against you."

There was a _how the Hells did you manage that_? undertone to Sissis's voice. Ruth smiled, proudly.

"Oh, my brother Clement is pastoral guide to Zulu students at the School. Clement is a very persuasive chap. He has quiet words with people. I taught a few of them myself. That helps. It also helps that I've got my agreement with my half-sister Precious Jewel. She sees the value of an orderly succession when Father goes, may the moment not be soon."

Precious Jewel had been one of the first Zulu girls to graduate from the School. She was now Chief Assassin in the Empire. She had influence several times over. With the Paramount King now over seventy, there wre already signs of his ambitious sons – and some daughters – jockeying for position and creating power bases. Trained by Lady T'Malia in political skills, the two half-sisters had decided that the last thing the Empire needed was a civil war over the succession, and both had agreed that their father had had too damn many kids. They'd agreed to do something about it, as best they could. Thinning out their more objectionable half-brothers and culling the herd a bit had been mooted as a possible strategy. And both knew their father encouraged sibling rivalry. Paramount Empresses only ever happened in the rarest of circumstances. Ruth and Precious Jewel had agreed neither of them wanted the hassle, thank you very much. But being the trusted advisor and the influence behind the throne had its advantages. They were still working on selecting the _right_ half-brother. This would take time. At least they had an agreed shortlist.

Ruth and Sissi discussed Zulu Assassins who might take out a contract on her. They decided six people needed to be watched. No further action for now. Just watched.

"Of course, any male Assassin who came into this kraal to inhume me. There are several thousand people out there who'd rip him to tiny pieces for even thinking it. That's a disincentive. It would need a _big_ contract fee." Ruth said.

They discusssed other possibilities, such as people being insinuated into the ranks of the Lioness Impi by her half-siblings. Sleeper agents.

"I'm watching for that." Sissi said. We do background checks on new recruits. If we debarred anyone who came from a clan with alliegance to one of your half-siblings, we wouldn't _have_ an impi. And everyone's loyal. But it's a potential weak spot."

"Keep an eye on things." Ruth requested her. "Precious Jewel tells me the Guild's been approached to sound out how much a contract on me would cost. The White Howondalandians, as you might expect. But it's likely to be declined. _Definitely_ deferred."

Ruth patted her stomach.

"The Guild does not accept contracts on pregnant women. You only contract for the mother. Taking out the child _as well_ is held to be unseemly, unstylish and common murder. By my reckoning, I'm safe for seven months."

They shared a delighted grin. From Ruth's point of view, marriage to Denizulu was by no means _all_ bad. Even though he wasn't and never would be Julian. As he was away for most of the time with the army he commanded, it wasn't a bad marriage at all. And her child – if a son – would be born in a very fortunate place indeed, two steps away from the Paramount Throne. A son would be worth investing in. And at age eleven, a son, or a daughter, could be educated in Ankh-Morpork, well out of harm's way, and learn lots of useful skills. Her old school was very good at teaching these, and a pupil who was both grandchild to the absolute ruler _and_ child of a very well respected graduate – well, that child would always get a School place.

The two carried on talking informally.

"Can you send my chef in? I need to know what's planned for dinner. Thanks." She waited while Sissi went to relay an order to fetch the servant. There were commands relayed in the corridor and running feet, feet wearing indoor sandals, the sound muffled on carpet, a rare thing in the Zulu Empire. Ruth had _insisted_ , and had needed to explain the concept in depth and patient detail. Up to and including the idea that bare feet were acceptable outside. But not on her carpets. Let that be _clearly_ understood. Again she reflected that Pteppic had had similar problems trying to communicate Ankh-Morporkian ideas to a nation not mentally geared up to understanding them. She waited for her closest guard and most trusted advisor to return.

"How many assassination attempts now? I'm losing count." Ruth said, casually.

Sissi thought for a moment.

"Seventeen, Highness. Including the latest."

Ruth shook her head.

"They do keep _trying_ , don't they?"

She knew the sort of strategies other Zulus would use. A sort of code of conduct, hedged around with strong taboos, governed them. They were so easy to evade, for somebody trained in the Assassin's Guild.

There was a knock on the door. Sissi stood to watch it as it opened, choosing a place where whoever entered would not immediately see her, her hand close to her sword-hilt.

"You called for me, Maharani?" he asked, bowing in deep respect.

Ruth smiled.

"Gupta, we've been through this. I know _Maharani_ means "Great Princess" and it's a term of respect, and I thank you. In a situation like this you _can_ be more informal. Use that other word, what is it, _mem-sahib_."

* * *

Gupta Patel had been a prisoner of war from Muntab. Ruth had seen the possibilities after he had volunteered to make her a curry – something she had quietly craved after leaving Ankh-Morpork, and simply could not get at home **. (2)** Not happy with his Muntabian superiors who had seemingly abandoned their Ghatian conscripts to defeat, he had instantly agreed to work for her, but had one request to make, Great Princess. Ruth had then pulled a few strings and called in a few favours, and had extricated Gupta's extended family from Ghat. They had settled in to a new country with the cheerful optimism of Ghatian emigrants everywhere, and one of his daughters had even volunteered for the Impi. **(3)**

She had an absolutely loyal cook as a result. His wife and sister worked as housekeepers with brisk Ghatian efficiency. His sons helped out in the kitchen and around the house. She knew Gupta was loyal: he had spotted a kitchenmaid attempting, with not enough discretion, to add an unspecified _something extra_ to the garam masala. Gupta had taken a very large wooden spoon to her back, and the resultant noise, outraged chef and screaming maid, had summoned guards.

Brought before the Princess to explain the noise, Ruth had heard the sobbing maid's confession.

"Princess Afeeka. My half-sister." Ruth had said. "You were originally from her household. Well, she is going to deny this publicly, and will say she never gave the order for you to add poison to my food."

Ruth shook her head.

"So you are now completely on your own. And your life is forfeit. You face the fate of a commoner who seeks to slay a Princess. May I remind you of the accepted ways for one such to die? And, to warn you. These carpets are _expensive._ Urinating on them in terror will make me even more angry."

She had asked Gupta if the girl had poisoned any more spices, or just one. Her cook had said he really did not know, Maharani. How may we check?

Ruth had considered.

"Take her back to the kitchen. Make her taste them _all_. Allow her ten minutes between each tasting. With adequate water to drink, if she wishes. Have her watched for signs of reluctance and ensure she tastes enough and swallows properly. If she dies or refuses, we know which ones are poisoned. _If_ she lives, bring her back to me."

As her inept would-be asassin was dragged away by two big Lionesses **(4)** , she had conferred with Sissi.

"Afeeka." Ruth had said.

"A Paramount Princess who must be spoken of with respect and not, for instance, be described as an arrogant idiot with the brains of a dung-beetle." Sissi had replied.

"Arrange her an embarrassing surprise, Sissi." Ruth had requested. She remembered a long-ago time when she'd humiliated some ignorant Vondalaanders. _One of whom was now Julian's brother-in-law_. "Something along the lines of Klatchian Cascara in her morning amasi. I know she likes it heavily spiced. She will never notice. Ideally, a morning when she has to attend some public event. Who do we have in her kraal? Then after she's been humiliated in public, she receives a message as to exactly how she ended up with bad tummy trouble, and who ordered it. That if she tries it again with me, there will _not_ be a second chance."

* * *

Today, Ruth requested the chicken chat, with chappatis, lots of onion bhajis, lamb somosas and shishkebab. "Perhaps with a sidesalad, Gupta? Thank you. And as from now, I believe I can reveal I'm eating for two, and by a happy coincidence, my pregnancy craving is curry. Thank you. _Namaste_."

She accepted fulsome congratulation graciously, then added a further request.

"Gupta? Our Witch-Finder will be dining with us tonight. Yes, I _know_. But at least he has grasped how to eat with a knife and fork. This one has some social skills. And I understand I _have_ to have one. Every kraal needs its resident Witch-Finder." Ruth sighed. Some crossbow bolts could not be dodged. "While our curries should be spiced to, say, a madras level, ensure his is a vindaloo? People in Ankh-Morpork eat these all the time with no ill-effects. Or they _claim_ no ill-effects. Thank you."

Her chef bowed himself out. She and Sissi shared grins.

"You have to be a gracious host." Ruth sighed. "Even to _them_. And I have to ask the oaf a few questions. Maybe even a favour."

She became serious again, and looked directly at Sissi, scrutininising her for a long silent time. Sissi held her gaze.

"Sissi." Ruth said, with soft intensity. "Let us discuss a situation. I hope this is only hypothetical. I _really_ hope this is only hypothetical. But if it came about that you ever had to go up against Mariella Smith-Rhodes. Assassin to assassin. How confident are you?"

There was a long silence. Ruth saw her old pupil shudder slightly.

"And I'm really, really, sorry to confront you with this. I truly am. I like her too. But in this continent there are different rules. We all know that. If it were Johanna Smith-Rhodes, I'd be taking a deep breath too, and looking for a decent way out."

"If I were ordered." Sissi said. "By you or the Paramount. Or if she crossed into this country in arms, and there were no alternative. I believe we would fight. But I'm not at all sure of who would win such a fight. On the running track she won one race out of every two against me."

Ruth pattted Sissi's forearm.

"It may not come to that. I'm looking for alternative ways out. But if it did. We would have to fight. And as you say – the outcome is not certain. Not at all."

Ruth wondered again about _mutual assured destruction._ She'd put this theory in a communication to the Guild. _If they despatch their best Assassins against us, we counter them with people we know are equally good Assassins. Good people will inevitably be killed and the stalemate between our nations will persist with no advantage gained. And the only institution to be weakened is the Guild of Assassins, as whoever dies – Sissi N'Kime, Mariella Smith-Rhodes, Horst Lensen, Emma Roydes, Precious Jewel N'Khazi – the Guild needlessly loses an irreplaceable talent who was many years in the making. Who, by the way, will also be mourned and missed. There has to be another way around this? How can we maintain the atmosphere of threat-in-potentia without tipping it over the edge and not only upsetting the balance, but breaking the scales?_

Vetinari would also see it, she reflected. Good.

After a while, Sissi went to go about her duties as a commander in the impi. Ruth thakned her and reassured her they had been discussing worst-case scenarios. But at the very least, they should pay thought to neutralising Hans Dreyer, a man who in an assembly of raptors would make all the other hawks look like peaceful doves.

"I'd still like to have people like Pieter van der Graaf to talk to, though. The clever open-minded ones." she added.

"And if Dreyer goes against you..." Sissi said.

"I then have reason and cause to hit back." Ruth confirmed. "Nothing personal. I suspect in different circumstances I'd quite like him. Johanna says she was tempted. Now there's a horrible prospect. Imagine if she'd married him and not Ponder? What would the kids be like?"

"Don't go there! There _is_ a letter from Bekki among the mailing I collected from the Guild. Be thankful for the daughters she had with Ponder."

Alone now, Ruth contemplated the letters that had arrived via secure Guild mail. She smiled. Old friends kept in touch. It was one of the things that kept her sane, now she had to live among her great big happy family again. She then spent precious time reading them. After a while she began to compose replies.

 _ **to be continued.  
**_

 **(1)** In distant Ankh-Morpork, the other twinned half of the inspiration particle had just, as if by some law of quantum, poinged into the head of Ruth's namesake, who had been sitting at her harpsichord playing scales. A driving, slightly sinister, melody in a minor key had emerged, that purposefully _splashed_ from the keyboard. Ruth's father had winced, sensing some sort of sympathetic magic was going on, and had wondered what the Hell it was this time.

 **(2)** historical explanation. A food history site, to my delight, says that while spiced foods were not unknown on east and south Africa, curries really started to take off after Zulus and other tribes began to make contact with India. The accepted route is that Zulus living and working outside the Empire in the early-middle 1800's met Indians brought in by the British as "Cape Coloureds" and got a taste for curries that way. The secret of curry was brought home and became a "fusion cuisine" with native African food. Some speculate that more adventurous Zulus made it to India, possibly as volunteer or press-ganged sailors, and found out about curry at source. Either way, curry made it to southern Africa. Which fits the vibe here, of an expat who discovered curry in Ankh-Morpork and discovered she had to go to pretty extreme measures to get one at home – another innovation Ruth brings to the Empire…

 **(3)** There was a separate sub-impi called The Tigresses. Ruth's reasoning was that the tiger was a large predatory cat not native to Howondaland and as deadly as a lion. Her policy of accepting _anyone_ prepared to swear the oaths of loyalty to the Paramount Crown Princess,to the Paramount King, and to the Zulu Empire, was causing controversy. Ruth pointed out that the Empire had no apartheid, all were considered equal, and the Empire these days accepted immigrants, as it should. Why shouldn't some of those immigrants prove loyalty to their new land by serving in its armies? Klatch accepted this idea with its Foreign Legion, and she was applying the same concept here. If a woman with service in a foreign army – but not the White Howondalandian one – came to her and proved herself of good enough character and swore the oaths and could learn to speak Zulu and fight like a Zulu – she was in. Ruth didn't add that this way she was also getting the military expertise of twenty different nations – including Ankh-Morpork and useful places like Borogravia and Zlobenia. She did accept the scattering of white bodies in her impi looked incongruous. But isn't this a great way of saying to the world – unlike our neighbours we do not have apartheid, all are equal?

 **(4)** One of the accepted fates for a commoner who seeks to slay a Princess. Although the lionesses involved are usually the feline kind.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Extract from PM to reader CarrieVS;**

 **Thank you! The next instalment may be sooner than you think - I returned to work earlier today after a lay-off to do my civic duty and sit on High Court juries. (I may, in general terms, work this unique experience into coming tales...). Most of that consisted in sitting in the jury panel room waiting to be Called, and often being sent home early having been paid for the full day. Better than working... This gave me time at home to deal with the constant buzz of inspiration particles that were driving me nuts as to how to continue this tale. And today, my managers discovered the place was overstocked with people, and each section manager was asked to select somebody to take the rest of the day off on full pay. Yes please, I said. So I'm here... (I scored 100% on quality assessment of my work; I see it as a reward).**

 **Anyway. I'm trying to draw a lot of loose ends together in the concluding few chapters: crisis on the Howondaland borders, sabres rattling, Mariella and Horst run into bother on a "business trip": this coincides with Bekki arriving in Howondaland and blithely walking right into the middle of it. Oh, she will not end up single-handedly resolving the international crisis and preventing a war - that's Mary Sue stuff - rather, she ends up as a middling-to-low piece on the chessboard. Definitely not a queen but more than a pawn; I'm thinking, as she will have a unique horse available to her by then, more of a Knight, who can jump any one of eight oddly-shaped ways at any time.**

 **Spoiler alert: Ruth N'Kweze lives. I have plans for her eventual destiny. It will be a nice one.**

 **Famke develops as a young Assassin and might even get a Vimes Run if she annoys Alice Band too much. Her sister Ruth gets lots more inspiration particles despite her father trying to divert them to safe containment elsewhere. A Strange Kind of (Young) Woman, perhaps, with an, err, Rainbow of possibilities. Lots of musical puns to write in, although I'm still wondering which Blue Öyster Cult songs might fit. Bekki did get to wield a Black Blade with latent magical powers once, after all. And with a harpsichord... there may be a Golden Brown moment.**

 **Perhaps also more on the** _ **{{Death Who Is The Colour Of A Morning Sunrise}}**_ **\- it sounds better than The PInk Death - and her best friend... and Rivka will be at least referenced, if not present to do another cameo. Alison the female jester is booked for a gig, too.**

Ukufa okubomvu – the Pink Death


	33. Strategieë

_**Strandpiel 33:**_ _ **Strategieë – Strategies**_

 _ **We're back! Taking an unexpectedly darker turn with warclouds looming – but all to set the scene for Bekki arriving in Howondaland, which will be soon. Written as I come out of being coshed with flu and mainly about Howondaland, but it has a Tykebomb action sequence in it. First revision for typos and clonky bits.  
**_

 _ **The Kraal of the**_ _ **Ingonyamakazi**_ _ **,**_ _ **The Zulu Empire.**_

Only a couple of people registered the strange octarine-tinged flashes over the kraal during the night. The Witch-Finder, who had been trained in magical use by the College and who could see the colour of the Gods, was in bed, sleeping off the big and somewhat fiery dinner he'd been offered by the Princess. As the lights had been in the sky, local wise-women in the area shrugged and put it down to supernatural. Probably an impondulo or something. Nothing to get aerated by. Flying by on its own business and not stopping. After a while, there were no more strange flashing lights in the sky. The night guards on the kraal, puzzled, shrugged and made a report entry to go to the inundula in the morning, who would then report to the iNduna. They decided it wasn't worth interrupting the sleep of either for, even though the Crown Princess had insisted all strange events in the night be logged, reported, and where possible investigated. Nobody was going to wake Her Highness over a few odd flashing lights in the night. Odd things happened in the night. Where Supernatural walked. You got things of _muti_ walking by night. This was Howondaland, after all. Stood to reason. You didn't go walking out there by night. If it wasn't Supernatural, it was lions or hyenas or honey-badgers, and you didn't mess with _them_. Howondaland resumed its uninterrupted night sleep.

 _ **Hobley's Stud, Lancre:**_

Bekki and Sophie leant on the fence, watching in supressed excitement.

"They _will_ come back, won't they?" Sophie asked, anxiously.

Bekki craned her neck to watch.

"They know where their stalls are." she said, practically. "And they're still only foals. They'll stay close to their mother. And _she_ won't go far on her own without Stacey. According to Irena, they won't go far and they won't go high. They're just learning what their wings are for. They'll get tired easily."

The Pegasus foals were taking their first faltering, fledgling, flights. Bekki was delighted and awed. It had been worth taking the long flight back to Lancre to be able to watch this. Sophie had sent an urgent clacks to the effect that the first flight feathers were coming in, and the Day would not be long now. Bekki had tidied up such work as was to be done in the Chalk and flown back. Later on, the harder and more sustained work would begin. One of the senior Service pilots would be here to advise on the next steps to be taken by each Witch and her Pegasus foal. Practical bonding of Witch to Pegasus was soon to begin. But for now, it was down to Mother to lead her two foals into the air, to encourage, to demonstrate, to guard, to shepherd. This was horse stuff, but in a different direction. Upwards. A mare and her foals playfully gambolling in the paddock. A very big paddock with a theoretically unlimited area.

They watched, as the stately mare flew in an unhurried turning circuit, flanked by a foal on each side who were beating their wings twice as hard to try and keep up. Every so often, the mare turned to check where they were. Bekki had an odd feeling that every so often Boetjie was aware of her and was looking at her as if to say _See what I can do? Look at me, I'm flying!_ She smiled up at her Pegasus. She was proud too. It was as near to a perfect day as it ever was. Even if there was a pineapple in the fruit basket – her sixteenth birthday was coming up. This meant reporting to the Lemonade Factory as Probationary Lance-Constable (Air) Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, R. For the basic Watch training that would be mandatory, prior to assignation to the Air Police and Pegasus Service. Even if the deal afterwards was that she worked, at least part-time, for the Pegasus Service, it still had to be done. She still had to be a Watchwoman at _some_ level, even if only as a Special. Bekki shrugged. She'd deal with that when it happened.

 _ **The Assassins' Guild, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork:**_

"Howondaland." said Lord Downey. The full Dark Council plus invited guests became more alert. This was going to be the _tricky_ one. They were discussing world events and the Guild's knowledge of them and what the Guild of Assassins should do, in the event of its collective input becoming necessary.

Downey smiled a thin smile. He was still Guild Master, the man who made the final decisions. Aware he was getting no younger, he was wondering more and more these days about making the final decision, standing down, entering a honourable retirement to his country lodge where he could go fishing, invite old friends, reminisce. He was thankful that he had the luxury of contemplating a bloodless transition to new leadership and that he could retire at all. His three predecessors in post had not been so fortunate and had all died in office. His immediate predecessor had gone distressingly insane and, had Vimes and Carrot not forced the decision on the Guild, would have needed to be persuaded to depart. In one way or another. Downey smiled slightly. _I'll be going with my sanity intact. Something to be thankful for._ He looked over to his most likely sucessor. _Joan. Sharp as a knife and nobody argues with her. If anything the Guild will be stronger with a Mistress at its head._ He speculated on the interesting fact that, almost without exception, Guild Masters were drawn from the ranks of the poisoners and not the fighters. He wondered if alchemy and poisoning created a more cerebral Assassin, the sort of mind that could effortlessly calculate and scheme and finesse, like playing a dozen chess games simultaneously whilst beset by the noise and heat of a steel foundry.

"The balance is shifting again." Joan Sanderson-Reeves agreed. "Just when you think the three big players are bouncing off each other like those dratted Agatean wrestlers in a ring, and no one can bash any of the others down. One side suddenly gets an even bigger fatter fellow out there who can build up a bit more speed, and..."

She brought two open fists together with an audible splat sound.

"And the students are playing that rather tactless _game_ again." Joan said. "You know the one. Things like, who would win in a fight between, say, Alice and Emmanuelle. _Fantasy Combat_ , they call it."

Dark Council members knew this one well. School students would periodically debate the merits, or otherwise, of renowned senior Assassins with Reputations, and speculate on who would win in a fight between Assassin A and Assassin B. Teachers either pretended it didn't happen, or else squashed it on the grounds of good taste. More thoughtful teachers considered The Game to be a barometer of many things, including a measure of how they were perceived by their pupils, or else reflecting on who the pupils thought _important_ and _significant_ enough to consider. And how they ranked them.

"At least it hones their analytical skills." Alice Band said, thoughtfully. "As opposed to wishful thinking and muddled logic."

"Like looking for a gold nugget in a midden." Joan snorted. "But you get _themes_ emerging. And you pay attention to _those_. Can't help noticing that a lot of speculating is going on about people like Mariella Smith-Rhodes. The _other_ Johanna. Emma Roydes. Our younger big-reputation people. Up against people like Sissi N'Kime. Kela Mepthule. Ruth N'Kweze. And those fantasy fights are going to the _wire_."

Downey digested this.

"Who's winning?" he asked. He'd played this game too as a student.

There was a short pause.

"Opinion is divided." Joan said.

"I see." Downey said, thoughtfully. "Has the Gamblers' Guild decided odds yet?"

"It's only a matter of time." said Alice.

"The known facts, Master." said Henri le Balouard, prompting the debate closer to its intended track. Le Balouard was one of those charged with assessing and evaluating incoming intelligence from around the Disc. His opinion in these matters was respected.

"We've recently seen change of government in Rimwards Howondaland. Practically every senior government position and senior ministry changed hands. The only significant branches of Government that have kept their old guard at the top are Defence and BOSS. They were able to consolidate. All the new people effectively had to learn from the ground up. This only masks a growing rift between hawks and doves in the administration. The hawks – Defence and BOSS – want to keep up a hard line with the neighbours and are keen for any excuse to harden the line still further. The doves – and do not forget these are doves only by comparison, you can think of them as less agressive hawks – are arguing for some sort of mutual understanding with the Zulu Empire in particular and an easing of tensions. The spokesman here appears to be van der Graaf, the Foreign Minister. So you have internal tensions on this side.

"And on the other side, the Paramount King will soon be celebrating his official seventieth birthday. State jubilation has been decreed, and the nation will no doubt rejoice. Mpandwe kaCeteshwayo is healthy and could well still be there in another twenty years, but the fact remains that he is seventy and has been Paramount King for forty years now. Nobody goes on for ever, and every day over seventy is, in a sense, borrowed time. Even now his more capable sons – and daughters – are very quietly beginning to scramble for position. At least twenty people are capable of making power-plays of various kinds, to put themselves in better positions for when the change comes. Even if they don't want the succession, they want to be sure of the son who _does_ get the throne. And their status with regard to the new Paramount King. This is only going to accelerate with time. So from a point of view of the Zulu Empire – goodbye, stability."

"We enter dangerous times in Howondaland." the Compte de Yoyo said, with gloom. "So there is no clear line of succession in possibly the most powerful country in Black Howondaland. The incumbent ruler, while hale, is not young. His most powerful sons each command armies. The old king has nominated no successor. Therefore at least eight of his sons, each backed by a small army, all consider they are in with a chance."

The Guild council members present looked in one direction. Or at least, their attention was drawn there. In their defence, they couldn't really help it.

Canon Clement N'Effibl, Guild Chaplain and a son of the Paramount King, looked back at everyone with an expression of calm serenity. It was possible that he might even have been expressing amusement. He waited a long time before he spoke.

"It is true that I am one of the older sons of King Mpandwe of the Clan of Ceteshwayo." he said, in his deep sonorous voice. "It is also true that I have as much, and as little, of a claim to the Paramount Throne as any son of Mpandwe. However, I have no impis. I have also been living here for several decades. My great father has seen no need to recall me home. I am a priest of a foreign religion. Quite simply, I am unsuited for kingship, have practically no power base there, and most crucially, I don't want it. Which I grant may make me unique among my brothers. I do, however, have an interest in preventing my nation sliding into civil war and weakness."

Doctor Perdore, the Guild's elderly spymaster, nodded at him.

"Your little, er, pastoral talks with Zulu students and those graduating from the Final Run?" he inquired.

Clement smiled slightly.

"I act as guide and counsellor to students of my nationality." he said. "It is a recognised duty among residential staff. Monsieur le Balouard and Madame de Badin-Boucher perform this duty for Quirmians. Doctor Smith-Rhodes and Mrs Smith-Rhodes do this for White Howondalandians. The Herr Baron guides Überwaldeans. It is hardly unique, and in many respects necessary."

"We guide students while they are in Enkh-Morpork, end towards the end of their stay here, we prepare them for their return Home." Johanna Smith-Rhodes said, seeing where Clement was going. "It is en eccepted duty."

Clement nodded to Johanna.

"And your pastoral advice might involve informal conversations concerning the way things are in your country. You seek to get them mentally prepared for National Service, and to steer graduates away from enlisting in the Bureau of State Security. It has been rumoured that you might also sound them out concerning agitating for enhanced womens' rights under law, and the case for a principled and moral objection to apartheid and how to express this safely. It is perhaps been the case, most recently, that you have also been discussing the archaic and absurd laws prohibiting witchcraft in your nation and the need for their repeal, so as to bring your country in line with the Central Continent as it is now, not as it was five centuries ago."

Johanna smiled slightly.

"Such things are rumoured, _ja_." she said.

The Canon nodded at her.

"In my case. I also speak to my people as to how things are. A general discussion over a civilised drink. I may make the case for a new graduate, on returning Home and after formal reception by my father has been made, to seek out one or both of two named sisters. All new Assassins are required by Guild Law to make themselves known to my half-sister Princess Precious Jewel N'Khazi, the Chief Assassin in the Empire. She will also welcome them back to the Empire and explain certain realities to ones who have grown up away from Home. At some point, the new Assassin will then be directed to seek audience with the Paramount Crown Princess. My half-sister Ruth N'Kweze can also be very charismatic and persuasive and many of those graduates, of their own free will, naturally, may either choose to give her allegience or else seek her patronage."

"By my reckoning, Ruth's bagged the best part of two-thirds of all licenced Assassins in the Empire." Joan Sanderson-Reeves remarked. "And Pecious Jewel has got all the _rest._ If it comes to civil war, why am I betting it won't last very long before people at the top start dissappearing. The civil war runs out of people wanting to fight it."

Clement nodded at her.

"Indeed, Dame Joan. One of the valid and possibly most ethically justifiable uses of the Assassin. To _prevent_ wars."

"Yes. It is notable that something like eight Princes and Princesses of the Paramount Royal Family have _dissappeared_ over the past months." Downey remarked. "Others have, sadly, died in an assortment of what an outside observer might choose to describe as _regrettable accidents_."

"Has your father noticed?" Alice Band asked Clement. "Even in a big family like yours, he's bound to notice. Sooner or later."

Clement smiled, with a hint of sadness.

"My father has always believed in there being an element of sibling rivalry, Alice." he said. "Apparently it keeps the family strong, and the best rise to the top. The weakest – well, they sink. _Natural selection_ , I beleive you call it in zoology classes? His point of view is that while it's regrettable, he isn't going to run out of children any time soon. I rather suspect he's watching several sons – and daughters – quite closely, as he discerns signs of promise in them."

" _We have reserves_." Alice said.

"Inheritance by competition." said Henri le Balouard. People nodded. These were family values the Guild of Assassins _understood_ and could get full-square behind.

" _Eish."_ said Johanna Smith-Rhodes, shaking her head. "End I thought _my_ femily could get..."

"Your Uncle Charles is more _subtle_ than that, from what I hear." Alice Band said, reaching out and taking her hand. "That cousin of yours who got posted to Aceria as a diplomat? Recognition? Promotion?"

" _Ja_ , until the grizzly bears got him on a hunting trip." **(1)**

Dame Joan Sanderson-Reeves nodded her appreciation. "Sheer art." she said. "Although your uncle could have asked me. No need, in the event. Are we _sure_ he wasn't educated by us?"

Lord Downey sighed. It wasn't _just_ wizards of the Faculty. Any meeting of senior Assassins could also ramble off-topic and stay there, until it was guided back onto the rails again.

"Which leads us inexorably back to the main issue." he said. "We accept that Princess Ruth is off-contract for now. Have we sent congratulations from the Guild on her pregnancy? Together with the courtesy reminder we would be most interested in educating her son or daughter? Also, her arguments advising against Guild involvement in any direct disagreement between the Empire and White Howondaland. As Dame Joan pointed out earlier, it is not clear at all what way that would go, except that we'd inevitably lose some of our very best people, rather needlessly, for no discernable gain. And many of them would be fighting pro-bono under accepted exclusion clauses, so there would not even be Guild tax involved. That _must_ be a consideration."

"Two powerful nations, both with fault-lines in their key administrations, indicating worrying degrees of internal instability." said Lady T'Malia. She had remained silent till now. "Political history tells us that a country beset by internal division may take the simplest and most brutal way of ensuring a degree of unity. Which is to point to an external threat, an ethnic or tribal enemy, and demand the threat be forcibly removed. By war. A people led or hoodwinked into this position is likely to respond directly. An insecure administration can secure its position by engaging in war. A new and shaky Paramount King, perhaps. Or else the hawks in government who see their position threatened by accelerating peace and normalisation of relations. An over-large Army, backed by a secret police force, whose people begin to ask – if we're working towards peace with the Zulus, do we really _need_ such a large expensive military? One that demands all our sons and daughters when they become eighteen and takes them away for two years?"

"Lots of redundant Generals." Johanna Smith-Rhodes said. "End if the enemy goes, people will _esk_. Do we need the Bureau of State Security to guarantee our freedom, egainst a threat thet no longer threatens?"

There was contemplative silence. Johanna contemplated an oldest daughter who in a little over two years time would be living in Rimwards Howondaland and eligible for call-up to National Service. This worried her. Bekki would not be a good fit for the military. She listened to Downey.

"And while Ruth N'Kweze has achieved some sterling and quite spectacular results with her Lioness Impi – we all read her informative reports on the Muntab War? – she has miscalculated in one very important respect. We understand she has no desire for war with White Howondaland and she sees the advantages of maintaining the status quo on that border. Indeed, she has deliberately moved the centre of her own power-base to a location a long way away from the border with Rimwards Howondaland. We also know she is engaged in informal and deniable contact with highly placed people in the White Howondalandian administration, with a view to lowering tensions and striving for normal neighbourly relationships. We are happy to facilitate that. Mr van der Graaf fully realises this. But this is something he can't yet say openly, outside a small and trusted circle of influential people. Meanwhile the true hawks are alarmed and want her to be removed. She is aware of this and is taking precautions. But her existence, and that of the Lioness Impi – more of a small army now – upsets the status quo just by being there. Its existence cannot be unwished. Despite herself, she could start a major war."

Silence again. Then somebody said

"Vetinari is going to be truly pissed off."

"Indeed." Lord Downey said, gloomily. Again, inside, he craved retirement. Making it into somebody else's problem.

 _ **The Chalk, late April:**_

Bekki walked around the stones, carefully, assessing, reading what the landscape and the layout of the stones told her. They weren't anything like as organised as the Dancers. But there was definitely a Gateway here. That, what was it, a _trilithon_ , a flat stone balanced squarely on the pillars of two uprights, was the key. It was a Doorway. Bekki looked at the hummocks of vaguely raised ground around it and remembered conversations with Alice Band. Many thousands of years ago it had probably been at the heart of a barrow, the skeleton around which a mound of earth had been raised over a chamber, the need then to cover and to protect something that would have rested inside. Thousands of years of collapse and erosion had done the rest, leaving only the bare bones. But two uprights and a horizontal remained, the original gateway to a place of death. And now it remained as a Doorway, its original function long served.

Bekki thought she could see through it into a slightly different world, one that didn't quite match the world around its borders. She didn't want to look too far: the memory of blindingly cold ice and snow stretching to infinity, that she'd briefly experienced at the Dancers, had been enough.

She looked down. Something unyielding squeaked under her foot, than gave. Yes: the earth here had also been seeded with iron, another warning to the elves, another _this-is-mine_ field.

"We watch this place too." said a soft voice from just behind her. Bekki knew enough not to jump. She recognised Tiffany Aching's voice. Tiffany had probably been here for a while, watching and biding her time.

"It's best witches never come to these places alone." Tiffany added. "We have to watch each other too. With the best of intentions, of course."

"Of course." Bekki agreed.

They walked on together. Tiffany periodically indicated places of special interest. Not all of them had to do with fighting Elves.

"So." Tiffany said. "After the Witch Trials in July. You'll be leaving for Howondaland?"

It was a statement rather than a question.

"I don't think there's too much for me here." Bekki said, with perfect honesty. "All the nearby steadings in the Sto Plains and Lancre are filled. Girls trained here are going as far out these days as Aceria, Fourecks and the Foggy Islands. Just to establish steadings, and take Witchcraft where it's needed. So I thought. I'm Howondalandian enough for it to matter. Why shouldn't I go there? I grew up speaking Vondalaans. Because of the maids at home, I can get by in Xhosa. So I would't just be a witch for white people. I think that's important too."

"The apartheid thing." Tiffany said, understanding. "You have got to be a witch for _everybody_. I agree that's important. No favourites, no preferences. You do the job that's in front of you and go where you're needed. You don't get to choose who, and you _certainly_ don't let other people choose your priorities for you."

Tiffany looked reflective for a moment. Then she said

"I get the feeling you're in for a fight or two. People who think differently to you aren't going to see it that way."

Bekki nodded. Tiffany grinned.

"Give them hell." Tiffany said. "Make trouble. you're going to a place that hasn't got all that many witches. Well – not white ones, anyway. It's all new. You need to establish the ground rules, and point out people are going to have to adjust to _you_ , not the other way around. Even if the local law says you're illegal, and a white woman witching for black people is twice as illegal. Challenge that. You'll have every witch on the Disc cheering for you. And keep me informed? Or Nanny Ogg?"

Bekki grinned quietly.

"I'm Ankh-Morporkian too." she said. "I've thought about this. People in my position who've been awkward – well, they don't go to prison. Vetinari asks questions. Or they don't go to prison for very long. They get deported. So I've got nothing to lose."

Tiffany considered this. Then she gave Bekki her hand.

"Lots of sheep in Howondaland, I hear." she said. "Consider this a crash-course in sheep. You'll need it."

They returned to dealing with things ovine.

 _ **Scoone Avenue, Ankh-Morpork.**_

The young Assassin, clad all in black, moved over the twilight roofs of Ramkin Manor. A little voice in her head was stressing caution, telling her _this is too easy! Something is wrong!_

She listened to the voice. It was part of the sensory input of the high rooftop. She paused in the lee of a chimney-stack, and took stock. She'd got into Ramkin Manor. She'd spent time in the Land Registry at the Palace, having attended in her best school uniform and looking as neat and girlish as possible, explaining that this was all for a School Project about history, architecture and the history of Ankh-Morpork, and School wanted her to do a project on how a street in Ankh had changed and developed over time, so she'd _love_ to have access to old plans and street maps.

Incredibly enough, this had worked, and she'd even been shown how to access the stacks and racks and archives and, having demonstrated she was neat and tidy and could put things back in the right places, the archivist had smiled benevolently and let the quiet, intelligent, well-behaved and polite young girl get on with it. He hadn't, seemingly, stopped to reflect on _which_ school she was a pupil at. **(2)**

Having researched her information from old street and building plans, the assassin had then located the long disused and forgotten culvert which had allowed her access into the grounds of Ramkin Manor. A covert approach had taken her to a section of wall where two wings of the building curved back on each other to create what was almost a natural chimney, overlooked by few windows. It was a blind spot that led her up onto the roof, undetected, as far as she knew.

The next stage was to locate the right entry point. Internal plans for the house lodged at the Land Registry had included a schematic for the chimney flues. As they had been a hundred years ago when the internal systems of the house had last been surveyed, admittedly, but the Assassin shrugged and reasoned that nobody ever _seriously_ alters the layout of their flues. Once installed, they're in for keeps.

And all Miss Band wanted was for her to get close enough to Sir Samuel Vimes to then be able to say, on her Assassins's honour, that shee had been in a position to launch a final approach to the client. That would be held to be sufficient.

"Off you go, then." Miss Band had said after hearing her operational plan. "And I'd be very surprised if you managed it."

The Assassin smiled slightly. In her opinion, Miss Band was going to be _very_ surprised...

The assasin wrapped and secured padded cloths around her knees and elbows. She'd read that boys of her age and younger had been used as chimney-sweeps and that chimney flues had been designed for them to scramble through with a little room to spare. She'd read about how they'd coped with that. It had been interesting reading.

And now she was doing this for real. She swung herself up and lowered herself, feet first, into the chimney. At this time of day sir Samuel was likely to be taking Afternoon Tea with Lady Sybil down in the slightly teal Drawing Room... the plans of the house, cross-referenced to material she'd gleaned from sources like _Wotcher!_ and _Tepidity_ **!(3),** was _down the main flue_ **here** _, count off three side-flues leading to upstairs rooms. Then a sixty-degree turn along this side-flue_ **here** _, by my reading of the archictect's plans I should be able to swing down into the grate, orientate myself, and announce why I'm here..._

It went according to plan until as she swung down the side flue leading to the Slightly Teal Drawing Room, she felt her foot dislodge something. Or activate something... and then she had to move her hands quickly as the grille slammed into place above her head, effectively sealing her escape route. The new, shiny, unrusted, metal grille, that smelt of oil and smooth mechanism.

She scrambled and leapt down the flue and felt the space around her widen into a fireplace. She was poised to leap out into the room when another grille dropped like a portcullis, down accross the fireplace, effectively sealing her in. Undaunted, she assessed her surroundings. She could see through the portcullis into a well-kept sitting room behind. She could smell cucumber sandwiches and tea. She sensed people. Two, possibly three. As she methodically attempted to assess where the hinges and the weak points were on the portcullis blocking her entry into the room, probing with a long knife, she heard the voice and smelt cigar smoke.

"I think our guest has arrived, dear."

And then Sam Vimes was grinning in through the grate.

The Assassin dropped her knife and lifted empty, albeit soot-grimed, hands in surrender. Not holding a knife when you met Sam Vimes was held to be prudent and good manners. Besides, Willikins the butler was also watching her. He was holding a cake-slice that, viewed in a different light, could be viewed as having a certain _weapon_ component to it.

"You got a long way." he said. "I'm impressed. Got the idea from your auntie, did you? Well, her exploit gave me the idea to have the traps installed in the chimney-flues. Just in case **.(4)** By the way, your Auntie Mariella didn't get any further than the dunnikin on her visit. Did she tell you that? Her friend Rivka made it to the rotting boards over a midden, by the way. Got further than most, I have to say."

Vimes fiddled with a mechanism. The portcullis lifted.

"Now pick that knife up – slowly and carefully, I'm watching you and standing close enough to make life inconvenient for you – then sheath it again. Thank you. And because your mother used to be one of my Specials and I have a soft spot for your auntie – not _just_ the dunnykin – I'm prepared to let you have a bath before I send you back to the Guild with a report for Alice. Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, isn't it? You must be the youngest Alice has ever sent me. What spectacular thing did you do to annoy her this much?"

Famke emerged, trying not to scatter _too_ much old soot. She sighed. Things could have been worse...

 _ **to be continued...**_

* * *

 **(1)** Charles Smith-Rhodes contemplates a suitable out-of-the-way exile for an embarrassing and dangerously incompetent family member (by marriage) in my tale _**Gap Year Adventures**_. He also steered the widow, after a suitable period of grieving, to a far more useful second husband. One who, incidentally, was a good husband to her.

 **(2)** Lord Vetinari had, in fact, been informed. He had steepled his fingers, smiled benevolently, and said that the young lady in question had an aunt who referred to him as Kindly Uncle Havelock. In his opinion he was inclined to be equally avuncular to the next generation of this family, and, besides, he had an intellectual curiosity with this young lady as to how she'd turn out. He had then asked _which_ street she was scouting out. Vetinari had smiled gnomically. "Instructive for all concerned, then. Capital."

 **(3)** illustrated magazines taking advantage of full-colour iconography to give readers a glimpse into the homes and the lives of the rich and influential and those whose lives epitomised graceful living. The Guild of Assassins took many copies. Interest was taken not only in who attended, but in the locations and what the iconography revealed about room layout and interesting access points.

 **(4)** Mariella Smith-Rhodes learnt the utility of chimney-flues in the tale _**Hyperemesis Gravidarum**_. Sam Vimes noted this and did some creative thinking of his own.

 **Notes Dump:**

 **Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.**

 **Was Tolkein aware of this?**

The **hobbit** is a unit of volume or weight formerly used in Wales for trade in grain and other staples. It was equal to four pecks or two and a half bushels, but was also often used as a unit of weight, which varied depending on the material being measured. The hobbit remained in customary use in markets in northern Wales after Parliament standardized the Winchester bushel as the unit of measure for grain, after which courts gave inconsistent rulings as to its legal status.

 **Jacob Zuma's gone as president, I see. I guess he pissed off too many of the ANC hierarchy by not cutting them in for big enough bribes or cuts of the take…. How far is SA following the time-honoured post-colonial trail of black African presidents and senior politicians siphoning off the loot? (Which is not to say ours are paragons of virtue either, regard Peter Mandelson, Jeffrey Archer, practically every Tory ever since 1979, at least half of Blair's, and one or two Liberals who were in coalition…) Are there numbered Swiss bank accounts in the name of Jacob Zuma and senior ANC hacks, little pension pots to cushion their retirement from politics…**

 **Found a delightful short book, called** _ **The Scoundrel's Dictionary**_ **, a compendium of some lovely words which have largely gone from English or else mutated into new meanings for new times.**

 **Off-colour-example: a** _ **nigmenog**_ **denotes a silly, stupid or mentally challenged person, perhaps mentally disordered. Thinking of a racially pejorative word that surfaced in the latter part of the 20** **th** **century, not a million miles away from the American n-word, and… hmmm. A word used for an undesirably stupid person that three hundred years ago had no racial context, repurposed. Still, at least there are lots of Discworld names in there! Random sampling -**

 _ **Munger**_ **: shameless beggar**

 _ **Fussock**_ **: a lazy fat slovenly woman**

 _ **Buckfitch**_ **: a dirty perverted old man**

 _ **Stivercramper**_ **(from Dutch): a man or woman persistently in need of charity – a sponge _(een stiuverkraamper?)_ **


	34. Besprekings

_**Strandpiel 34: Besprekings - discussions**_

 _ **We're back! Taking an unexpectedly darker turn with warclouds looming – but all to set the scene for Bekki arriving in Howondaland, which will be soon. Continuing the logic of the story from the last episode which is now apparently becoming a mighty saga of interlocked family and friends on two continents, not just about Bekki. Again first imprint, will revise for typos.**_

 _ **Wafa-Wafa, Smith-Rhodesia. Seearende Barracks.**_

"You'd better keep _this_ quiet." Mariella Smith-Rhodes observed, as she turned the iconographs over in her hands and cross-referenced them to the meticulously drawn plan that had been made from them. Hans "Crowbar" Dreyer grinned a happy smile, as of a special forces commander who has got it all worked out to his satisfaction.

"It worked, though." he said, grinning broadly. "Took a lot of arranging. Had to call in favours."

Marriella frowned the deepest frown she could safely give to a senior General.

"You got hold of a magic carpet. And a pilot-for-hire. Then you flew it over the Zulu Empire by night and took iconographs. The ones with the special infra-octarine flash."

Mariella considered the iconographs again. They were lit up in an eerie green radiance that made everything stand out as if it had been photographed in daylight, albeit in a strange green sort of daylight.

"The Klatchians don't like that sort of thing." she said. "Their technomancy being hijacked for military use. Well, _other people's_ military use. When the Zulus work it out, they'll blame the Klatchians. The Klatchians will then protest to _us_. And don't we have standing orders strictly prohibiting any incursion into Zulu land, without specific and exceptional permission from the highest level?"

The Crowbar grinned.

"The wording of the standing order expressly prohibits incursions into the Zulu Empire by land or sea, _ja_." He agreed. "It says nothing about going in from the air. Believe me, I checked."

He grinned again.

"Besides, Sproet, you've crossed the border a time or two yourself."

Mariella breathed out.

" _Ja_." she agreed. "But either with express and understood permission from the highest levels, or else on Guild contracts, where no other authority is needed."

"Or else in self-defence during a fight." her occassional boss reminded her. " _That's_ allowed. You can't break off a firefight just because you've crossed the border."

Mariella turned back to the iconographs and the plan drawn from them.

"This was an incredibly risky thing to do." she reminded him. "What if you'd been attacked? Shot down? Ran out of magic two hundred miles inside their territory? Been seen in daylight?"

"Ag, I'd have made a plan." the Crowbar said, shrugging. "And I accept the shouting-at that I'm going to get from you. Going myself was wrong and irresponsible and could have caused a headache if I'd been killed or captured. But the way I see it, Sproet. Why should my junior operating officers get all the fun? I can't sit in an office forever."

"And you wanted to see for yourself." Mariella said. "Ruth's base. So you took a pilot and a flight-wizard and you took the iconographs yourself. _Ag_!"

Mariella turned her attention to the plan of the Lionesses' Den.

"Big kraal. Grew from nearly nothing very quickly. Nearby river and lake provides a water source. Strategically located for fast communications with the Royal Kraal. As near to centrally located in the Empire as Ruth can find, so it's hard to get to from our border or from the coast. Now more of a town, in fact."

"I estimate getting on for four thousand people, now." the Crowbar said. "Only half of those are fighting soldiers. But you've seen it yourself, Sproet. Any military barracks develops into a town after a while. Wives. Well, _husbands_ , in this case. Children. Supporting industries."

He pointed to distinctive features on the plan and iconographs.

"Triple wall on the kraal. She wants a clear distinction between _inside_ and _outside_. The three gates are staggered. Go in through the main gate, you do a quarter-turn inside before getting to the middle gate. Then another quarter-turn to the inner gate. So you can't just slam through all three in one rush. Looks like she's using _stone_ for the guard-houses, or at least brick. That's new. And I've never seen a Zulu kraal before with watchtowers. Defensive ditch being dug round the outer wall. That's new too. Sproet, this would be a _bliksem_ to capture."

"And all the interesting stuff is here, in the central compound." Mariella observed. "Closely guarded and defended."

She pointed out several long, low, rectangular buildings, clearly not of Zulu design.

"This has got to be the manufacturing plant she's set up." Mariella observed. "Looks like the sort of glorified shed you see in Ankh-Morpork. Where things get made."

"In this case, crossbow bolts and arrows." The Crowbar agreed. "And we think she's gone a step beyond that, Sproet. Word out of Ankh-Morpork is that she's contracted armourers to set things up for her. Quite a few fellows from the Guild of Armourers – and their families – have dissappeared from the city. Well. Not _dissappeared_ as such. They've accepted contracts to work abroad in a well-paid, low-or-no-tax, job. She's making weapons, Sproet. That's _serious_. Up till now the Zulus have been dependent on what they capture in war, what the Klatchians dole them, or what they can buy on the open markets in the arms trade. That limits everything, like the quality of the weapons and even getting an adequate supply of ammo. Another reason why they've never been good at projectile weapons. Till now. If they get a weapons industry of their own to make crossbows and other stuff, that's worrying. I'd quite like that _stopped_."

Mariella very carefully did not discuss the implications of this. She continued studying the plans.

"A large _huis_ , here. Not Zulu design. It even has a lawn."

" _Ja_. Seperated away from the rest of the settlement. That _has_ to be the Princess's home address. She lived in Ankh-Morpork for long enough to appreciate living like a native. Shame we can't attack that. The powers-that-be have vetoed any direct move on the Princess herself. Scared if we do, it starts the war. The _big_ one. But we can do other things."

Crowbar Dreyer pointed out a cluster of homes in between the first and second walls of the kraal. They also seemed subtly different from Zulu dwellings.

"Her contract labour lives here. The way I see it, an attack _here_. To show she can't guarantee the safety of the skilled workforce she's imported from the Central Continent. They get scared. Go home to Ankh-Morpork. Bad news spreads. She loses the people she's got to make her weapons and to train Zulus to make them. Puts a crimp in her plans."

Mariella looked at him. She had realised, slowly and unwillingly, that the Army commander she looked up to, admired and respected, the man who had nurtured her progress in the military, the man she would have wilingly followed anywhere, had a deeply ingrained streak of sociopathic ruthlessness. It was deeply disconcerting. She also knew, deep inside, that being ordered to deliberately target non-combatants, even if their husbands and parents were working for the Zulus and therefore legitimate targets to a certain mind, was an order too far. Even if the Guild of Assassins might describe this as extreme prejudice. Mariella had decided early on that she was never going to do extreme prejudice. Her sister Johanna had done this _once_ and still felt guilty about it, a long time further on. It was a big blot on her sister's psyche and something that still haunted her. Mariella had determined not to go the same way.

"A terrorist attack." she said, flatly. "on civilians."

" _Ja_. Why not? Spread a bit of useful terror. And these people chose to work for the Zulus. They're not innocent."

"Even their wives and children?" Mariella said, tartly. She looked at him and realised that he was being deadly serious.

Crowbar Dreyer dodged this.

"We can also go for her military advisors." He said. "Is that ethically acceptible to you, Sproet? The women she's got from places with military history, like Zlobenia and Borogravia. And from the Academies at Quirm and Sto Lat. The ones teaching her troops to think and fight like Central Continent soldiers. BOSS have got to be useful for _something_. They've promised me a list and some basic intelligence."

Mariella considered this. Not everybody in BOSS was a useless clown or an empty ideologue. BOSS was also her nation's intelligence-gathering and spy network in the world. Its best people were good: the Dark Clerks of Rimwards Howondaland.

"So. What you want is to insert people by night. A deniable attack to set Devices in the manufacturing sheds and to destroy her armoury. All the weapons she won against the Muntabians and all the ammunition for them. Risky, Crowbar. You're forgetting she's got a lot of graduate Assasins on her payroll and they'll be her first line of defence against something like this."

"You've done it before, Sproet." Crowbar reminded her. Mariella breathed out.

" _Ja_ , but the Klatchians weren't looking out for that sort of approach. Ruth's an Assassin. She will be prepared. And I tell you, Crowbar. Attack her and she'll come back against _us_. Her position and her status actively demand that. And I happen to know that when Ruth is pissed off, you have got to arm for tigers. You know? When she works out what the strange flashes in the sky were overhead, and she _will_ , you're going to find it a lot harder to get any more flights over her base. And she's likely to try some sort of counter-attack. Just to make the point. This can only escalate."

"Could you do it?" he asked, pressing the point. "Get in there and plant Devices?"

Mariella frowned.

"Fifty-fifty. No guarantee of success. None at all. I'll think about it and make a few plans. But if I'm caught doing it with no escape route, I'm _dead_. Which is not something any Assassin likes to contemplate."

"Know anyone who could?" the Crowbar asked, hopefully. Mariella thought.

"There's one of us who _might_. If the money was right. And she isn't Rimwards Howondalandian, so there wouldn't be an international incident if she was discovered. You could argue she's a freelance mercenary just in it for the money. I could ask if she wants to come in as a consultant. And be warned, Crowbar. If she thinks it's impossible – then it's impossible."

Crowbar Dreyer frowned.

"And the sort of money she asks is going to strain the budget. You know, the one for freelance consultants." he said. Mariella looked sceptical. The money was usually provided for Crowbar Dreyer, who delivered.

"Can't help that." she said. "If you want the best, you pay the price. I'll go ahead and ask Rivka, shall I?"

Crowbar Dreyer nodded assent.

"Okay. But let me run this other plan past you first..."

 _ **The Kraal of the**_ _ **Ingonyamakazi**_ _ **,**_ _ **The Zulu Empire.**_

"Such a shame my half-brother was too busy to accept the invitation to be my guest." Ruth N'Kweze said, to the visiting iNduna. "But be assured, General, you and your escort are my guests in my kraal and you are welcome here."

Ruth smiled at the visiting dignitary, who commanded the army corps loyal to one of her half-brothers, the Crown Prince who was one of the front-runners to succeed their father as Paramount King. He had arrived with several junior officers and a small escort and had been announced at the gate. Ruth had heard the news that the uSothagu corps had marched and was going to be conducting "field exercises" a day or two's march from the Lionesses' Den. She had recognised a threat when it was being made to her. An _unsubtle_ threat, but a threat nonetheless. Without any great fuss, the Lionesses had been instructed to carry on with normal duties and training for now, but to be prepared.

She was showing the visiting delegation everything. Well, _nearly_ everything. And making sure the fifty or so fighting soldiers who were escorting their officers _also_ got to see everything they were shown. With a bit of luck they'd go back to the ranks and stories would spread among the troops, growing in the telling.

She smiled again. The men who were escorting appeared nervous and possibly even a little bit intimidated by being among so many confident and capable women soldiers, whose attitude to their male peers was one of good-natured condescenscion. For now. Also good.

They were on the wide plain outside the kraal used for training exercises. This was a risk, Ruth knew, as there could be a strike force of the uSothagu out there, biding its time. But there were a lot of Lionesses out here, going about routine training. Besides, their father, the Paramount King, had issued dire warnings about the King's peace and what would happen to anyone who broke it, by for instance setting their impis on the impis of another Prince. Or Princess. She thought even her idiot half-brother wouldn't be so crazy as to fire the first shots in what would then become a civil war. His General looked distinctly uneasy at the prospect. She was working on this and providing lots of good reasons as to why the uSothagu corps should do nothing more out here than field manouevres. She had discreet scouts out, watching them. Eight thousand spears within two days' march was not a thing to discount. Even if its General was here, a man whose body language and unspoken words suggested he was deeply uneasy and looking for a peaceful way out. And their General was currently, effectively, her hostage. That worked too.

"Princess, what is the purpose of this?" the General asked, politely. He indicated the roughly human-sized effigies erected on the plain, in ranks laid out to look like an impi deployed for war. Some were dummies, others were cut-outs in plywood based on the Central Continent model.

"A demonstration, General." she said. "Observe."

Her arm gesture took in the seemingly random scattering of large rocks on the ground. Ruth raised her spear. Orders were relayed. Then oxen, beasts of burden, were driven forward and halted behind the Lioness soldiers who were ranked as a protective screen. The members of the Youth and Recruit impi who had driven them forward then began unpacking large baulks and sub-assemblies in wood and metal, whose purpose was immediately unclear. A white-skinned officer, an indunula, detailed other soldiers to assist and supervised the assembly.

The dignitaries watched as the wood and metal contraption took shape with surprising speed.

"In the Central Continent, this has the name of a _pierrete_." Ruth explained. "My indunala, Marianne de Menières, formerly served as an engineering officer in the Quirmian army. As even today commissions for female officers are hard to come by in parts of the Central Continent, and Lord Vetinari has seen to it that there are less wars there and thus less opportunity for fighting soldiers, she was happy to bring her expertise here."

A second, and then a third, pierette was quickly erected. The prefabricated parts took remarkably little time to assemble. They took the form of a long, well-balanced, beam whose fulcrum rested on two high trunnions on a frame. A net dangled from one end of the beam, and lots of ropes hung down from the corresponding end. At the order of Captain de Menieres, sixteen women took station at one end and took a rope each, eight arrayed along each side. A very large rock was placed in the net at the other. This end of the beam dropped under the weight and the other end rose.

" _Attention! Tenez!"_ the Captain called. Each of the sixteen women on each rope on each pierrete took stations and pulled their ropes taut. They braced. The captain looked expectantly at her iNduna.

Noting she had the full attention of her visitors, Ruth smiled, lifted her spear, and let her arm fall.

" _Tirez!"_

Forty-eight bodies pulled down in perfect unison in a well-practiced drill. The Lionesses cheered as the bombardment began. The first stones fell short or long, but the Captain ordered slight adjustments. Soon large stones were crashing in among the target dummies and smashing the ranks of the enemy impi to splinters of rag, straw and plywood.

Ruth smiled at the visting General.

"The simplest form of siege catapult there is." she said. "It requires no mechanisms other than human strength. Quick to build, easy to maintain, easy to raise trained crews. If the current crew tires, another sixteen soldiers may be detailed to take over. And rocks are everywhere."

As the bombardment slackened, Ruth raised her spear again and pointed in a different direction. Then her cavalry came, small wiry women from a semi-desert region, born to the horse. They charged on the remnants of the target impi and began throwing javelins. Others, riding larger slower horses, followed up. They were armed with lances and horsebows.

Ruth smiled. Setting up eight hundred targets had taken time and many would be smashed beyond salvage. But only a handful still stood. And most of those had crossbow bolts and javelins perforating them.

The final detail was to loose her infantry to clean up. They demonstrated the classic horns-of-the-bull manoevre, spreading and circling. After a while, as the dust settled, no target remained standing. Anywhere.

"A whole impi, General. I estimate destroying it took twenty-seven minutes. Admittedly the real thing would be more mobile than that. But we can adjust for range. And light cavalry can move faster than infantry."

She let this sink in, and said "Shall we return to my kraal and I can offer you lunch? I'm _sure_ you will report back accurately to my brother as to what you just witnessed."

Praying they wouldn't realise that at the moment, she only actually _had_ three catapults and three fully trained artillery teams, Ruth led the way back to the kraal, leaving soldiers to perform the necessary housekeeping on the training ground.

 _ **Lancre, the skies above Hobley's:-**_

Bekki flew a little higher, enjoying the spring day and the clean air. She felt the nearby turbulence in the air and heard the flapping wings, a steady confident beat. A horse neighed in the exultation of flight.

She wanted to whoop with pleasure, but steadied her broomstick against the turbulence. It wouldn't be long, now. At first she'd taken Boetjie up on a long lead, tethered to her broomstick, beginning the careful process of weaning him from his mother and getting him habituated to being in the air with her, controlled by leading reins. Now she realised the training lead wasn't necessary. He'd follow her anywhere and not stray too far. And he was growing, fast and strong. The next stage would be getting him used to tack. The _specialised_ saddle for a Pegasus would have to wait till he was fully grown. But her foal, more of a colt now, was easily three times the size he'd been at birth. Pegasii grew fast to maturity.

Arrangements had been made. Shortly after the Witch Trials and her sixteenth birthday, Boetjie would travel to Ankh-Morpork with her. He'd be stabled at the Air Police station. Bekki – and Sophie – would then undergo what promised to be the utterly dreadful recruit training in the Watch. She'd seen Sergeant Detritus. And Fred Colon. Twelve weeks. Bekki had hoped to be able to stay at home and commute in. Her mother had squashed _that_ one. Mum had said that your sister Famke was made to board at the Guild School for a purpose. To get her used to surviving away from home and to fully immerse her in what it means to be a Guild student. Wellnow. _Your_ turn, I think. In two years time it is possible you will be doing National Service in the Army. That's _twenty-two weeks_ living in barracks with no possibility of local leave. Best you get a taster of this _now_ , even if the City Watch is only mildly military. To prepare you. You will therefore live like any other Watch recruit for those twelve weeks, in their barracks, even though your home is only a short journey across the City. You will thank me for this, Rebecka. Trust me.

 _Well, I'll deal with that when it happens. And it's only three months_.

 _ **The Kraal of the**_ _ **Ingonyamakazi**_ _ **,**_ _ **The Zulu Empire.**_

Ruth had wished her guests safe journey back to their unit and conveyed her best wishes to her brother, hoping the reports his General would no doubt bring would provide him with ample food for thought.

She smiled slightly to herself. Sinbothwe was an idiot and a fool. But he had a good general who now realised he was outclassed and who in any case was extremely reluctant to start a civil war. The Great Paramount King would have a short way with those who broke the peace of the Empire. Which included errant Generals. Ruth also reflected that her husband should have got her message by now. Denizulu commanded six thousand spears. She could count on him to make up the numbers if any serious trouble broke out. Added deterrent.

She began running the various power-plays in her mind. About the only Paramount Princes she could think of who didn't harbour the illusion that they might get the throne were her brothers Clement, who genuinely didn't want it, and Isiwula, who actually did seem to be happy in his role of Crown Prince Responsible for Sweeping Up The Royal Buffalo Droppings. **(1).** Ruth contemplated the idea of a Paramount King Isiwula emerging by default after his more powerful and ambitious brothers had eliminated each other. The idea made her smile. She'd heard about Walter Plinge at the Opera House, or at least as he had been. King Walter. _Maybe with the right advisors behind the Throne..._ then she added _No, wouldn't be fair on the poor soul. He's happy with his broom and shovel and the buffalo seem to like him._

Then she decided the six or seven ones with a good realistic chance needed watching. And perhaps a dozen or so behind them who had the ambition but not the ability. And the malevolence to lash out if they were frustrated. Prince Inyoka Emnyama **,(2)** for instance. A poisonous wart with links to the College of Witch-Finders.

She sighed.

"You know, Sissi, if my father had bothered to nominate somebody to be his Great Wife, so her son is automatically heir, it would clear a lot of things up."

"The Paramount King, long may he live, can never have too many wives nor can he have too many strong sons." Sissi said, automatically. You never knew who was listening.

"Sons, certainly." Ruth sighed. "And in one crucial and important sense, he only needs one."

"His sons have been dying lately in a series of regrettable accidents." Sissi observed. " _Some_ of which came as a surprise to us. May your half-brother, the Crown Prince Sinbothwe, not suffer any sort of regrettable mishap."

Ruth heard the unspoken question, which was _"Shall I arrange one for him?"_

"May he remain whole and capable of reflective thought." Ruth replied. Which meant " _No, not for now. Father quite likes the sod_." She aslso reflected that if her half-brother were to have any sort of little accident after today's face-off, it wouldn't take their father too long to work out who had ordered it. Best to let him wait for a while. Father's favourite sons, the ones he nurtured and indulged and would definitely miss if any died prematurely, would take different handling.

Then there was growing commotion outside. Not greatly so; just a change in the normally muted sounds of everyday activity in a community of getting on for four thousand people. The background noise was getting louder and conveyed a sussuration of astonishment and some alarm. Ruth stood, and reached for weapons. She heard Sissi calling orders to the guard, then followed her trusted and closest lieutenant outside. A guard fell in behind and to either side as they left the house. But everybody was looking up...

The white horse was about two hundred feet up, performing several slow and stately circuits of the compound. Its wings beat lazily against the sly, occassionally pausing and riding on a thermal. Ruth shouted orders to some of her soldiers who were pointing crossbows upwards. She was glad they were alert and had the presence of mind to do this; but she also knew what would happen if you shot at one of _those_ horses. The riders got a bit annoyed, for one thing. She'd seen this at the Tobacco Farm. And Vetinari would also have things to say.

"There is no danger. Stay alert, but do not shoot!"

"That's new." Sissi observed. "They usually only call at the Royal Kraal. Where the Embassies are and where our government is."

"Indeed." Ruth agreed. The horse was coming in to land now. "From what I've heard, Vetinari sometimes orders the pilots to stray off agreed flight-paths. To see what's going on, so as to report back. Is that two circuits or three that pilot has made now?"

"Three." Sissi confirmed. "Ample to get a picture of what there is here. But she's coming into land now. I believe the pilot is Sergeant Politek?"

"The second-in-command." Ruth confirmed. "They tend not to send Olga on flights to the Empire these days. Not after marriage confirmed White Howondalandian citizenship on her. That raises issues." She turned and called instructions to a domestic servant, who was watching the _muti_ of the flying horse with some awe. The servant bowed and ran back to the house.

"Tea, with three sugars." Ruth confirmed. "I'll have to get a samovar in, if we're going to get regular visits. You have to be hospitable to guests."

Irena Politek executed a pretty good four-point landing. She wasn't surprised to find herself ringed by lots of intent-looking Zulu soldiers who weren't _quite_ pointing their assegais at her. But the _intent_ was clear. She unhurriedly dismounted, and stood by her Pegasus to await what came next. She studied the soldiers. Apart from being female, they were fairly typical Zulu infantry. She noted the assegais and the knobkerries, as well as the large machete-like swords which her breifing said only officers carried. Minimal uniform, with dyed feathers in their head-dresses. She registered the repeating colours of green and white, and recalled these were the House colours of Tump House, at the Assassins' Guild School. Apparently Ruth had ordered her impis to carry AGS house colours as a distinguishing mark, as some sort of private amusement. Ruth had been in Tump House, governed by Alice Band. Green and white denoted her most trusted troops.

The green-and-white motif also recurred in the breast-bindings the women wore, a sort of bandeau bra arrangement. Irena could see the logic of this. If you were running around a lot and fighting, you didn't want things to bounce too much. It could get painful and get in the way. And it also looked pretty stylish, she had to say. The sort of thing an Assassin might think of. Both functional and attractive.

Irena remained silent as the ring of soldiers parted, and the woman she was here to speak to walked forward. She remembered her briefing.

" _Bayede."_ she said, and then bowed, as befitted a Witch. Strictly speaking she should have prostrated herself before the Paramount Crown Princess, but she was a Witch, and she was buggered if she was ever going to do that. To any royal, _anywhere_. Best to make it clear what the rules were.

Ruth smiled back. There was a low whispering among the soldiers. It sounded affronted. The Paramount Crown Princess smiled, lifted her hand for silence, then addressed her troops.

"They believe you are not showing me sufficient respect." Ruth remarked. "You are expected to prostrate yourself on the ground, or at the very least, to kneel and bow your head."

"They can dream on." Irena replied.

Ruth nodded.

"I have explained to the troops that you are a powerful Witch and a user of _muti_. You are from a different land where different rules apply. And that the bow from the waist, coming from a Witch, is a mark of the greatest respect, and that no insult was intended. Besides, I suspect that's the most I'll ever get from you, and I'm not inclined to push it."

Ruth smiled and stepped forward. She clasped Irena's hand, friend to friend.

"Kettle's on." she said. "Fancy a cup of tea?"

The sense of menace faded as the Princess was seen to escort the strange foreign witch-woman into her home. Without anyone actually saying so, it was understood that the visitor had the favour of the Princess despite her appalling act of impoliteness in not prostrating herself. Besides, she was clearly a witch, she controlled the magnificent flying horse, and nobody cared to piss off a witch. There were several wise-women, _isangomas_ , among the wider community, and nobody cared to annoy an _isangoma._ They weren't as malevolent as the Witch-Finders, not by a long way, but they still controlled the mysterious and terrible force of _muti._

Irena retrieved a satchel of documents from a pannier, and asked where the stables were, as she didn't want to leave her mount out in the open for too long on a hot day in Howondaland. Ruth issued instructions for fodder and water to be brought, and the Pegasus was cared for to Irenan's satisfaction. The press of people who had swarmed out to witness the magnificent flying horse parted as it was led to the cavalry barracks. Then Princess and Witch walked back to the house, talking together in Morporkian about mutual friends in _{{Stone Kraal Reeks Of Incontinent Creatures Of All Sorts}}._

"Okay." Ruth said. Sissi was guarding the door. She and Irena were sitting in the lounge with cups of tea. It was a fairly relaxed conversation. So far. "Normally this goes by secure Guild mail to the Royal Kraal. Precious Jewel collects and signs for it. Then she makes sure it gets to me via a really trustworthy courier. As you deliver it there, I'm under no illusions. Vetinari gets an idea of what's being said. I work around that. It's understood. But today you've delivered it direct. Which also gives you a good chance to look at my kraal from above. _What else_ has changed?"

Irena took her time in replying. She said

"You've read the official letter from Vetinari? There was one for your father, too. A longer one."

Vetinari's letter had congratulated her on her pregnancy and expressed hope that a child who would grow up as a Prince or Princess would be educated in Ankh-Morpork, so as to inculcate a _cosmopolitan_ outlook on the world. Ruth had interpreted this as meaning _if your child stands a good chance of eventually becoming Paramount King, then we want a say in their education._

Vetinari had also congratulated her on creating a highly efficient military force, one that had made a decisive input into the Muntabian fighting. He had noted that it was growing larger and more potent seemingly by the day. He had said he would watch the Lioness Corps with interest as it grew. Ruth had not been comforted or reassured by this.

"Yes." Ruth said. "I read it."

Irena nodded.

"And – I'm not prying here – you got the mailing from Johanna? She might have _hinted_ at a few things, that she can't say more explicitly and directly."

"Yes. She's my friend. But she's also White Howondalandian."

Johanna's letter had been about family and friends. She'd also taken care to enclose clippings from the Ankh-Morpork papers about the explots of the Lioness Impi. Most had been meticuluously and closely clipped out from the papers. Except one. This hadn't been as carefully clipped out as the rest and had somehow carried a lot of a full-page advert on the reverse side, advertising something called Slime's Liniment, a sovereign remedy against muscle pain. The very large headline from the advert had been left intact. It read **WATCH YOUR BACK!**

Julian – and she ached for him – had politely congratulated her on the coming child. He too had, very pointedly, enclosed lots of clippings and comments from the White Howondalandian papers. Ruth was described here as "highly dangerous" and "an implacable enemy" and some of the comments pages were speculating as to what should be done about her. Quite belligerently so. Ruth had grasped this point too.

"Neither of them can say it explicitly." Irena said. "But they're warning you that there are people out to get you. What if – and this is only speculation, you understand – some of the people who are going to be ordered to come out and get you are actually related to Johanna and Julian? That means they've both got conflicting loyalties."

"That would not surpise me." Ruth admitted. "Apparently, Mariella's settling in to being a farmer's wife on the other side of Rimwards Howondaland. With only residual ties to the Guild. Or _apparently_ so."

"Mariella? You _think_?"

"Point taken." Ruth conceded.

"Okay. I'm not telling you _everything_ Vetinari said to your father. He did express a hope that while your father will undoubtedly live a long time yet, now is a capital time to clear up uncertainty concerning the sucession. We're all agreed that's a good thing? He also assured your father that a couple of half-brothers of yours who have been exiled in disgrace for recent indiscretions are being adequately looked after in Ankh-Morpork, while their requests for asylum are being processed..."

Irena grinned slightly. She nodded at Sissi.

"I'm not going to ask how their entire familes ended up on tramp-ships taking the slow road back to the Circle Sea."

"That was the _merciful_ way." Sissi said. "In former times the whole family could have been executed for the misdeeds of the father."

Ruth nodded.

"Some people think that's being too soft and too bleeding-heart liberal. Crime and punishment not what it used to be in the old days. But I'm not murdering _children_ , Irena. Even if their fathers are a right royal pain in the arse. They're still my nephews and nieces, and besides..."

Ruth patted her stomach.

Irena nodded, understandingly.

"Three months gone, now, isn't it, Ruth?"

Ruth nodded.

"Half of Johanna's letter was a long list of all the things that make life horrible and uncomfortable when you're pregnant. In a _lot_ of detail. I suspect she was rubbing it in."

Irena smiled.

"If you were a sadistic murderous evil bitch without a conscience, I wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you. But listen. Vetinari also put a proposition to your father. Your father has, I believe, accepted. Vetinari noted that a significant number of skilled people have left Ankh-Morpork and the Central Continent to work for you. There's quite a big expat community here, in this place. He therefore thinks it fitting that there should be an Ankh-Morporkian Consulate established here, to represent their interests."

Ruth looked at Sissi.

"Basically, his agents keeping a close eye on what goes on here, and reporting back." Ruth said. Irena smiled.

"Yes. Spies. But if your father agrees and commands it... oh, you'll get a regular Pegasus flight coming in, so that's not completely bad news. My advice is to accept. And think about it. If there's a capable bastard in White Howondaland with an intention to launch a raid to wreck what you've got here. Imagine if the collateral damage in a big raid includes foreign nationals _and_ a diplomatic mission? I should imagine not even Crowbar Dreyer is going to be able to walk out of _that_ one with his job intact. Vetinari's giving you an insurance policy, as pay-off for getting his spies in place. And above all. _He doesn't want a war starting_."

Ruth considered this. She nodded.

"Okay. Who do I get as consul?" she asked.

Irena smiled.

"Vetinari suggested a capable high-flyer in Palace service. Somebody with a thinking brain. How do you feel about Sharon Higgins?"

"Dark Clerk. Guild trained. So she'll be reporting to the Palace _and_ the Guild. And I know her. Sissi knows her. Tell Vetinari she's acceptible?" Ruth said.

"Good. It was that or a Selachii, Vetinari said."

There was another meaningful pause. Ruth made some thinking time by refilling the teacups.

"I'll bring you a spare samovar." Irena offered. "I hear you've got a Cossack or two working with your cavalry? Great people, Cossacks. They're just not completely at home about women riding with the _sotnia_ as equals. Some old-time attitudes."

Ruth grinned. Cossacks were some of the best horsemen in the world. They just had a thing about _horsewomen._ Her agents had taken advantage of this.

"Anyway." Irena said. "Can't help thinking that you're wide-open to being attacked from the air. Have you thought about that? If I can fly a few circuits to get an idea of what's on the ground, and all you've got are people hopefully pointing crossbows up, you can't stop me doing that. It would take a lucky shot. If I'd had an iconograph machine, I could have been taking pictures all day, or at least till the imps ran out of paint."

Ruth looked at Sissi. They both remembered, at the same time. _Green flashes in the night..._

Ruth explained about this. Irena nodded. "Night-flash. Specially bred imps. Somebody was taking pictures. You'd better watch that. Now they know what to look for - magic carpets with barrels full of Agatena Fireclay. Light the fuse, roll it off the back, boom. Or larger carpets with fighting soldiers on. They land, attack, get picked up again afterwards. _Special forces_. I'd work on my anti-air defences."

Later in the day, Ruth called an _indaba_ , a conference of senior officers. They discussed defences. She winced at one possible solution. It involved people she didn't like and preferred to keep at arm's length. But it was the best solution. For now.

 _ **More to come!**_

 **(1)** Ruth had a lot of half-brothers. There were only a limited number of royal appointments. And Iisiwula was liked, or at least quietly understood by everyone to be a nice sort of guy. Just a bit… _limited_ … in what he could do. No threat. It would be like kicking a puppy.

 **(2).** OK. Google Translate offered this as a translation of "Black Adder". Not sure how good it is, though.

 _ **Extract from pm to reader syed:**_

 _ **good points! The paradox/inconsistency/sexism of wizardry being fully accepted and even having its own school of study at the local university - whilst witchcraft is illegal under an archaic law from the old witch-burning days in the Central Continent - is something I have in mind to explore. Olga and Eddie, who spend part of their week in RH and commute via Pegasus, will be involved. (and the twins, who'd be pushing three by this stage in the tale). Olga is an RH citizen by marriage - and also a Witch. How she gets around being illegal is to be dealt with later. I've hit on the Sekkian attitude to witches earlier - Mother Superior discussed the Scriptures and why she thinks they're absolute tosh - so the sisterhood of nuns will reappear, as well as their method of challenging/ignoring apartheid law in their missions in RH. Nuns, like witches, make their own way in life and are a formidable sisterhood with worldwide branches. Bekki may find there are already covert witches in town, or at least formidable women who dress in black and make a profession of benevolent interference.**_

 _ **let's see... Bekki still has a few months on this continent. She'll have her sixteenth birthday and have to do recruit Watch training. She will spend more time training Boetjie. Then to stay in RH, initially with Aunt Mariella and Uncle Horst. Who by then will be dealing with bigger issues still. Bekki will discover that while she has yet to acquire a taste for alcohol, she's good with wine in the same way Tiffany is good with cheese. There appears to be no way of stopping this sort of thing emerging in witches. Haven't yet worked out what the viniculture equivalent of Horace the Cheese will be. But ideas are forming. Maybe an eventful stay at her grandparents. And after that... also more on why the College of Witch-Finders is the magically-inclined counterpart of BOSS and how magic works for Black Howondaland. There are, as Bekki will discover, witches there too, but "invisible" ones.**_

 **Also reading a history of the Zulu Wars, Donald R. Morris.** _ **The Washing of the Spears**_ **. In depth, full of useful stuff about the rise and fall of the Zulu Empire on our world, lots of material about Zulu laws and customs, the tense history of the Zulus', and other Southern African tribes', interactions with their British and Dutch neighbours. Really recommended.**


	35. Wat Werklik Is

_**Strandpiel 35:**_

 _ **om te sien wat werklik is – to see what is really there**_

 _ **We're back! Taking an unexpectedly darker turn with warclouds looming – but all to set the scene for Bekki arriving in Howondaland, which will be soon. Continuing the logic of the story from the last episode which is now apparently becoming a mighty saga of interlocked family and friends on two continents, not just about Bekki. Again first imprint, will revise for typos.**_

 _ **A not quite full length but longer than a short to be getting on with. Embuggered today by a washing machine failure in the kitchen. The Death of Washing Machines has called here and reverent disposal of the corpse, together with selection, payment for, and installation of a new Device, had to be attended to. Ah well.**_

 _ **More to come! Second go, typos and odd clumsy bits tidied.  
**_

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Johanna frowned at the sound of distant unrest elsewhere in the house. There was a definite commotion going on somewhere. She reflected that the letter she'd got from Ruth N'Kweze would have to wait, much though she wanted to read her old friend's latest news, then pushed her chair back, and went to see what was going on. It sounded like something happening in the kitchen...

The housemaid Blessing ran to her.

"Lady, come quickly! **(1)** A large wild bird has somehow got into the kitchen! Dorothea is angry!"

Johanna sighed. It happened, sometimes. Disorientated pigeons or starlings or the like found their way indoors, probably attracted by open windows and the nearness of a food source. And like houseflies, were utterly unable to find the way out again. In breeding season, male birds would see their own reflections in windows, then charge in to attack a perceived rival. She'd seen stunned blackbirds shaking their heads after bouncing off an unexpectedly strong rival with a hard punch, then charge back in for another go. The word _bird-brained_ had evolved for a reason.

And when a panicked bird was flapping around in circles in an unfamiliar enclosed space and seeking a way out, even a sparrow could be misidentified as an eagle by the equally panicked human who wanted the alien thing to be removed.

"I'll deal with it." she said. The best strategy was to wait for the creature to exhaust itself, and then trap and release. But Dorothea the cook was probably chasing it around with a broom or something, and doing exactly the wrong things...

Johanna decided on tact. All employers of domestic staff knew that even though they paid the wages and met the bills, and however exalted their social rank and prestige, in some areas their staff were masters and mistresses of their own domains. This was especially so with cooks. It was tacitly understood the kitchen was Dorothea's empire. It was also the nucleus of the domestic staff's accepted space: the staff ate in here and took breaks here. And even though Claude was the butler and in charge, the kitchen was Dorothea's. It was understood. Johanna herself felt she almost had to ask her cook's permission to enter. She'd once asked Lady Sybil Ramkin if this was just her, if there was anything she was doing wrong in the Madam and Staff dynamic. Sybil had laughed delightedly and patted Johanna's arm. Then assured her that she, Sybil Ramkin, Duchess of Ankh, only went into her own main kitchen at great need and only with the tacit permission of her own head cook. And believe me, Johanna, it's _easier_ this way. **(2)**

The commotion grew louder as Johanna got to the kitchen. She took in the scene. Dorothea, an amply plump middle-aged black woman and a good advertisement for her own cooking, was huffing with exertion as she chased a panicked bird around the kitchen with, yes, a besom. She was alternatively shrieking at it in her own language. Johanna again felt a twinge of guilt that she'd never really picked up too much native language. It was probably Xhosa. Bekki had picked this up effortlessly from being around the staff; Johanna had never picked up much more than the pidgin called "Kitchen Kaffir", the patois thought to be sufficient for white people to talk to the blecks. She now knew, after an early unfortunate interaction with a black Howondalandian pupil at the School **(3),** that this could be perceived as insulting and condescending by the people you spoke it to. She still got the occassional red flush of shame about this, usually at three in the morning when you felt these things most acutely.

Johanna assessed the bird, which was part-hopping, part-flying, around the kitchen in a cawing and terrified sort of way, dodging the flailing broom. She sighed again. Birds knew nothing of bowel control, and when panicked they tended to... Johanna winced. And _that_ would not help her cook's temper at an intrusion into the smooth flow of her morning.

She glanced across. Her daughter Ruth was placidly sitting at the kitchen table, a look of intent concentration on her face, sketch-pad and pencil working busily. Johanna had to admit that was a _very_ good one, albeit quickly captured, of Dorothea flailing about with the broom. And what was she drawing _now_...

"Don't move!" Ruth suddenly said. Even Johanna jumped. Ruth's voice had suddenly become one of command and imperative. Any passing student from the Guild School might have stopped dead in their tracks, mistaking it for Johanna's.

" _Stand still!_ Thank you."

" _Jislaik..."_ Johanna said, softly. She shook her head and regarded her youngest daughter. _This_ was unexpected. Ruth was the shy, quiet, softly spoken, one of the three. Wasn't she? And hearing her own voice coming out of her youngest daughter's mouth... there had to be something of her in Ruth, there _must_ be, but seeing and hearing it for the first time was deeply disconcerting. Something else to mention to Ponder when he got back from the University.

But everybody had indeed stopped. And was standing still. Even Dorothea had paused and the broom was lowering. The bird – Johanna had identified it as a raven by now – was perched out of reach of the broom, on a high shelf, and was looking around in mad-eyed avian distress. And there was something _odd_ about that raven. It was hard to focus, somehow, to see what it was. And then she saw it.

"You." Johanna said to the bird. "I know you cen understand me. You will fly down _here_ end perch on this table where I cen see you. I will elso lay out en old newspaper, so thet you do not anger my cook more than you have elready. Dorothea, stend beck. I will deal with this. _Dankie_."

She'd seen this bird before. Her students had also seen it, those who tended the raven colony maintained at the Animal Management Unit. **(4)** And Ponder had filled in some interesting information for her.

"Besides. Ravens do not usually _speak_ the word " _Caw_ ". They _croak_. So do not pretend thet you do not speak Morporkian."

The raven turned its head nervously towards Dorothea, who scowled but stood back. She held the broom threateningly. But the bird hopped down to land on the newspaper that Johanna had laid out on the table as insurance against further avian incontinence.

"End only one bird I have heard of wears a seddle end stirrups." she observed. Johanna glanced over to her daughter, who was still industriously sketching. Every so often she paused and focused on an apparently empty space on the table in front of her. Johanna was now more sure of what she was dealing with. And she resolved to share the story later with Ponder. He'd be interested. She wished he was here to see this: this was his area of competence, after all.

She turned back to the raven, who was regarding her with nervous intent.

"Explain." she said. She folded her arms and gave the kind of glare that was capable of paralysing an entire classroom. If a raven could gulp nervously, this one did.

"Errr... ma'am." it began. The voice had the sort of quality you'd expect from an avian larynx speaking in human words. It was reminiscent of a well-taught parrot in many ways. But Johanna knew that even in the normal course of events, ravens were at least as intelligent as parrots, and then some.

"I know your name." Johanna said. "My husband, who is a wizard, told me. You are called Quoth, yesno?"

"That's me, ma'am!" the bird said, quickly. "Just don't ask me to..."

"The N-word. _Ja._ I shall not. Now. You are not a thing of megic. Enhenced by megic, possibly, but not megic or supernetural of yourself. Therefore I cen see you. Just es I might see a white horse, but not the one who rides it. The one you accompany. He is here elso, yesno?"

"Yes, ma'am." the bird said. Quoth nodded down the table. "Gettin' his portrait done. Vain little bugger. Your little girl clocked him straight off, and wanted to draw him."

Johanna looked into an empty space. The same empty space her daughter Ruth was industriously focused on as she sketched. She moved round to stand behind Ruth. Yes. There it was on the paper. A rather good pencil sketch of a skeletal rat wearing a hooded cowl and clutching an appropriately sized scythe. She shook her head slightly.

"So whet brought you here?" she demanded of the raven. "It cennot be me. The operation on my heart was some weeks ago. Thenks to Igor medical skill, I em pretty much recovered. Besides, if one of you were here for a human, it would not be you. I would expect to see – elright _, to be in the presence of_ – Death himself. Or else Susan Sto Helit, in her other professional cepecity."

"Rats, miss." Quoth said, promptly. "Tryin' to get into your garden. Persistent buggers, rats. Them two bloody enormous buggers of cats gets around a bit up and down this street. So we come here often, know what I mean? Know our way around. Anyway, His Nibbles had to collect three or four what didn't know what an Astoria Trailing Creeper is."

The raven paused. It shuddered.

"You've got a garden out there what doesn't mess about, haven't you?"

Johanna smiled. Her colleague Davinia Bellamy had planted the garden with things like this in mind. Astoria Trailing Creeper was a ground-covering plant which _might_ have had things like carnivorous fly-traps in its evolutionary past. But it had up-graded to bigger things and routinely tangled, ensnared and devoured hopeful rodents looking for a new home. Pyn and Smart, the resident cats, simply ignored it and trampled over it. just to make the point, Pyn pissed over it too. There were limits to what even Astoria Trailing Creeper could manage, and these were Acerian Maine Coons.

"And them cats of yours got the others." "the raven said. "So while His Nibbles was doin' the necessary, I gets smells on the wind, and I sees the open kitchen window, and, errr..."

Dorothea glared at the raven again. It winced.

"The little girl, she was sittin' here talkin' to the cook and she has her drawin' pad. His Nibbles come to find me, she sees him, and she sez, pose for me. So he does."

"It is true, madam. Miss Ruth is always welcome in this kitchen." Dorothea said. "Unlike _some_."

"Finished!" Ruth said, relaxing. "Want to come and see?"

"Before you do." Johanna said. "Be told thet you are not to go into the cold cebinet to steal eny cheese. Or Dorothea will get _really_ engry. End. It would help if you revealed yourself. I know from my husband, end from my daughter who is a Witch, thet you cen choose to menifest even to those you are not here to ettend to professionelly. Even to people who have no megic. So _show yourself_."

Johanna tried to unfocus, in the way both Ponder and Bekki had tried to describe to her. _Suspend your conscious inner critic, the part of your mind that tells you you cannot possibly be seeing this and therefore that the thing does not exist..._

"Oh, end you must have heard ebout the Teatime Prize? Bear in mind I have won it five times." Johanna said, pleasantly. "I understend there is en operational plen for the inhumation of Death himself. It is kept in a _very_ secure locked end guarded place, es so far, the Guild understends thet to destroy Death himself would not be a desirable thing. But Jonathan Teatime himself – you are eware of that name? - devised it. Which means it must be viable, for my Guild to keep it in such security. I _could_ find out where it is kept."

There was something that was not quite a shimmering in the air, possibly a shift in reality or a slight re-adjustment of the possible, and Johanna became aware of a small figure hunched uo in a hooded cloak.

She turned to regard it. The Death of Rats looked up at her through seemingly sightless eye-holes in its skull. They glowed with a clear blue light.

"Hmmm." she said. "I em professionally interested. You are stending up on your hind legs. This is not usual for a ret. End I am puzzled es to how your bones remain etteched and how movement erticulates. When there ere no muscles. No tendons. No ligaments."

SQUEAK.

"Yes, I might es well esk how you may consume cheese with no digestive system. No _epperent_ digestive system, enyway."

The Death of Rats shuffled uneasily. He'd never been scrutinised by a zoologist before. One who showed no fear whatsoever and in fact was displaying professional interest. A _lot_ of clinical professional interest.

Johanna even reached down and twitched the hem of his robe aside. Death of Rats flinched slightly. This was not normal for humans. She leant forward and took a long interested look.

"I would guess that in life – if you ever _hed_ a life – you would have been a Rattus Nothingfjordius." she said. "Thet species is distinguished by the longer length of the long bones in its hindlegs. You have thet quality."

Death of Rats politely twitched his cloak back. Johanna smiled.

"You posed for my daughter. I thenk you. Thenk him, Ruth."

"Thank you, Mr Rats." Ruth said, politely. Death of Rats nodded up to her. Then he scuttled forward to admire the sketches Ruth had made of him. The SQUEAK! conveyed harmonics of praise and approval.

"Every life model deserves a fee. Dorothea, hev you any slightly stale cheese you can spare?"

"You will be sending these – _guests_ \- on their way soon, madam?" Dorothea said, pointedly.

"I will, Dorothea. But the cheese?"

Dorothea went to check the cold cabinet. Quoth the Raven coughed, meaningfully. Johanna smiled. She looked towards a shrouded _something_ on the kitchen worktop. Dorothea had covered it up, for now.

"I haven't drawn Mr Quoth yet, mummy." Ruth said. Johanna smiled at her daughter. Ruth had pencils and pad out, and her drawing fingers were twitching. She was impatient to get started again.

"Would you like to? I believe we cen errive et en egreement here."

She nodded to Dorothea.

"You are planning to make a _muriwo nanyama_ for the staff? Good home cooking?"

"Yes, madam. With mopane worms and mupunga unedove." **(5)**

"Sounds delicious." Johanna lied. "Have you started preparing the goat's head yet?"

"No, madam."

"Then may I extrect the eyes? I believe they are not required for goat's head stew. Possibly this is whet drew Quoth here in the first place? Dankie."

Johanna did some deft work with the right sort of knife. A zoologist and an Assassin, extracting two intact eyeballs was something she could do with her eyes closed. Ravens do not drool, but Quoth was making a pretty good attempt.

"Here is the deal." Johanna said. "You will leave this kitchen via the beck door. My daughter will go upstairs to her studio – her bedroom – end open her window wide. Should you wish to eat this cheese end these eyeballs, they will be in her room on a plate. But, Mr Quoth, you will pose for drawings for Ruth, end you will be her life-model. You will remain until she is setisfied with your input to her work. You will _earn_ these eyeballs. I hope thet is understood. Now. Before Dorothea becomes really engry. Time for us ell to depart, I think."

Johanna waited until Raven, Death of Rats, and daughter, had left. Then she rolled her sleeves up.

"Dorothea, while you cook, I should, I think, essist in cleaning up efter thet raven. Bird droppings are not good to have in a kitchen."

Dorothea smiled, placated now.

"As you wish, madam." she said. "The cleaning things are in this cupboard here."

Johanna got to work, relegated to cleaner, for the moment. She sighed. Ruth's letter from Howondaland, from the older Ruth, could wait a little longer. And she phrased, in her head, what to say to Ponder. Our _daughter Ruth has enough magic to be able to see Death automatically. But she is an artist. She is gifted, or cursed, with the ability to see further than most and to see what is really there. How do we deal with this?_ She decided to mention it to Rebecka, too. _if Ruth has any witch-stuff, best her older sister is made aware. Let's get her opinion as well.  
_

* * *

 **(1)** Blessing, a girl brought over from Howondaland to be a house-girl to white employers, had never been able to completely shake off the learnt habit of calling a white employer _~Baas-lady"._ Johanna had understood this and tolerated it. Johanna's elevation to the nobility and the title of Dame had meant Blessing now had the alternative of _My Lady._ Her maid had somehow settled on the compromise halfway term of _Lady._ Johanna understood this too.

 **(2)** The head cook at Ramkin Manor, however, did graciously allow Sybil use of a smaller sub-kitchen for those occasions where the Duchess felt personally compelled to prepare the Duke the classic breakfasts he loved so much. She even saw to it that it was stocked with the sort of ingredients that would not be out of place for an All-Day Morporkian at Harga's House of Ribs.

 **(3)** Now Crown Princess Precious Jewel N'Khazi, the current Chief Assassin in the Zulu Empire. It had been a seriously big blunder, when Johanna had been new to both Ankh-Morpork and teaching. The back-story is in my tale _**The Graduation Class**_ , which introduces a much younger Johanna, then aged nineteen-twenty. Johanna had learnt a lesson and taken _much_ greater care with Precious Jewel's younger half-sister, Ruth N'Kweze.

 **(4)** Shameless plug for my _Discworld Tarot_ short on Death, which is set in the AMU.

 **(5)** All valid and probably tasty dishes in Zimbabwe, or in this context, Smith-Rhodesia.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where ideas and concepts go to stay fresh in the fridge whilst awaiting the audition call.**_

 _ **Had this idea for a spin-off, where one of THOSE magical accidents moves Bekki, Famke and Ruth through time and space to Pasadena, California. After a series of amusing misunderstandings (I see Famke going Tykebomb in the face of menace by typical high school age would-be bullies), the girls run into Leonard and Penny. Penny says she's sure she's met you somewhere before but can't place it. "You look kinda familiar, sweetie."**_

 _ **They see photographs. It dawns on Bekki, with horror, that there is a very good chance that she and her sisters are likely to run into their own parents. As they were when they were much younger, unmarried, and a long time before they started having kids. The potential for paradox is immense. Humour happens as they miss encountering their own much younger (and blissfully unaware) future-parents, by mere inches. Leonard, Penny and HEX get them back to the Discworld after a couple of close calls. Before having her mind bleached by HEX, Penny says to Johanna: "I've got a feeling you're gonna be one Hell of a good mom, sweetie."**_

 _ **Probably won't do this as it will make an already very dense story still more complex. But I present this as an idea of the sort of random direction my brain takes.**_

 _ **Zimbabwean food. Yes, goat's head soup is a thing. and not just a Rolling Stones' LP title. Mopane worms are a real foodstuff. Apparently tasty. All Jolson probably sells them at the Howondalandian Food Emporium. M**_ _ **upunga unedove is a tasty-looking combination of peanut butter and rice. Looks interesting! In this world they would, of course, belong to Smith-Rhodesia.  
**_


	36. Musiek en liedjie

_**Strandpiel 36:**_ _ **Musiek en liedjie**_ \- _**Music and Song**_

 _ **We're back! Taking an unexpectedly darker turn with warclouds looming – but all to set the scene for Bekki arriving in Howondaland, which will be soon. Continuing the logic of the story from the last episode which is now apparently becoming a mighty saga of interlocked family and friends on two continents, not just about Bekki. Again first imprint, will revise for typos. Lots of ideas, too little time. I have MANY ideas sketched out and roughly plotted. It is just a matter of finding time... second version with slight revisions to eliminate typos and inconsistencies and littel extra bits added.  
**_

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork**_

Doctor von Ubersetzer had been the Guild School's principal teacher in Music for a long time. He had come to the notice of the Guild as a young orchestral conductor, when his short way with a viola player who had not only failed to tune his instrument, but who persisted in playing out of time with the rest of the string section, had led to a degree of necessary correction. The Assassins' Guild had offered him a position shortly afterwards. He had mellowed in the thirty years since, but a long succession of students with minimal musical talent, who still had to get passing grades to satisfy the Concordat requirement that an Assassin should be a person of refinement who could play a musical instrument – well, this was something that had left him with a marked tendency to _twitch_. People in the staffroom very kindly tried not to notice this, and were understanding. The Concordat stipulation, the one that insisted the Assassin should be capable of playing a musical instrument proficiently to advertise that they were a person of means and leisured refinement, did not sit well with the unfortunate reality. That most people were only ever destined to be at most competent, and then only after much effort and practice which the Guild School simply could not fit into the allocated two hours per week per pupil.

And many of the pupils, far too many, contributed to Doctor von Ubersetzer's growing collection of nervous tics. Thirty years of trying to remain cheerful and encouraging in the face of cack-handed ineptitude– the Dark Council had politely asked that there should only ever be _one_ viola player on his professional résumé – had left a mark. His colleague Gillian Lansbury got it too, he reflected, when she saw the umpteenth less-than-indifferent painting submitted by a hopeful pupil. The same Concordat clause also insisted the Assassin be literate in Art as they were in Music. That was Gillian's turtle-to-be-tied-to. **(1)**

But there were compensations, von Ubersetzer reflected. Every so often. Just often enough to make it all worthwhile. There was at least one in every class, in every year. He relaxed and listened to the joyous sound of a pupil who was not only good, but outstanding, in his chosen instrument. The sounds of Fondel's _Trumpet Involuntary_ filled the practice room, played, he considered, pretty near faultlessly. And the trumpet wasn't even this pupil's _best_ or even _preferred_ instrument. He had motioned the other boys in the room to stop and listen, to a trumpet played in the way they should all aspire to. Listen, he had said, and learn, if you can. This sort of thing made it all worthwhile, to a teacher. And it helped that the boy was in himself pleasant, good-natured and likeable. You could go a little further with an exceptional pupil you felt warm and well-disposed to. Not entirely professional, he knew, but all teachers had their favourites. To Assassins, they often became fortunate and well-regarded protégés. Every Guild teacher ended up with a clutch of them.

The sound died away and there was spontaneous applause. Even the boy's peers knew they were in the presence of talent. Besides, good old Ampie had earned them a breather.

"Outstanding." the Doctor said. "A little hint of wavering on ze long notes, you should practice your circular breathing a little more, _junge_ , but nearly faultless."

"Dankie... _Danke_ , Herr Doktor." the boy said, politely. Von Ubersetzer smiled slightly and wished more of his pupils were like this. There were boys in the room who could _still_ make a noble wind instrument sound like a cat farting in a drainpipe. And in a Lower Sixth class eighteen months away from the Final Run, he felt there was little hope for some. But he still had to get them to at least a passing grade...

"Have you given any thought to what you will do after you graduate, _junge_?" he asked the boy. "I understand you have no great desire to practice as an active Assassin."

His pupil thought about this. Then he replied, in the same Überwaldean, but with _that accent,_ "There is a commitment at home that I cannot escape, which will last for two years. But I am wondering if there is a career for me in music."

The Doctor smiled in an avuncular way.

"Higher academies in music would certainly take you, _junge._ And your ability is good enough for many professional orchestras to take an interest. I can write you a very good reference, and many directors of music are known to me."

"I thank you, Herr Doktor. Any introduction you could make would be welcome and a generous gift."

Von Ubersetzer again politely ignored the unfortunate intonation in the boy's Überwaldean. He suspected it was a necessary quirk of the boy's native language, that carried over into Überwaldean. It could make a simple polite request to _pass the salt down the table, please_ into something that sounded, to an Überwaldean native, like _I intend to smash your face in, with extreme prejudice._ At least two of his staffroom colleagues spoke Überwaldean with that accent. It took some getting accustomed to. **(2)**

They continued a polite conversation whilst the class of aspirant horn-players performed the necessary post-performance housekeeping of cleaning valves, draining spit valves, and generally tidying up. Then their lesson was over. Doctor von Ubersetzer turned to his teaching assistant, Nigel Heggerty. Nigel was, unfortunately, a viola player. In deference to his Head of Department, he tended to teach other stringed and bowed instruments. Knowing your senior was an Assassin who could have unpredictable moments at the sight of a viola was a good incentive.

"Remind me of my next class, please, Nigel?"

Nigel Heggerty supressed a shudder of pain.

"A first year mixed ability class, Herr Doktor. The young ladies of One Raven."

Both teachers shuddered together. The Doctor visibly twitched. Both looked over to the teaching pianos with a certain dread.

"The most Honourable Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." Heggerty said. This time Doctor von Ubersetzer _really_ twitched.

"We had better get on with it, then. Get it over with."

And the grim reality of life for music teachers began again.

 _ **The Royal Art Museum. Ankh-Morpork:**_

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons inspected the painting with a critical eye. Beside her, Miss Gillian Lansbury stood proud, interested to hear what Ruth had to say about this one, pleased to be in charge of her, happy to have an early evening off to do something pleasurable in the company of somebody who was not only getting more knowledgeable by the day, but who really appreciated these things. And, Gillian reflected, who was still barely only eight years old.

Gillian sighed slightly. She wasin her middle thirties now, unmarried, and up until now, had regretted neither condition. Her life as a teacher and Resident Housemistress was a busy and full one. It was true, admittedly, that she was in a sort of walking-out arrangement with a nice enough guy; but it had been strolling along at a sort of leisuredly pace for a few years, the two of them viewing each other as a congenial escort to gallery openings, exhibitions, afternoon salons and the usual sort of social occassions the Art world provided for its denizens. Looking at Ruth and seing the sort of girl she would be overjoyed to have as a daughter, Gillian wondered if now was the time to start dropping great big hints to Toby. _Let's make it formal. Settle down. Create a masterpiece of our own. The sort that is nine months in the making._ She wondered how he'd react to that. Toby was the son of Sir Reynard Stitched, the etiolated and culturally rariefied Curator of the Royal Arts. Despite all the _rumours_ about Sir Reynard, he was actually married, and he and Lady Stitched had produced one son. People who had not hitherto known this were amazed.

Tobias Stitched had grown up relatively normally. He had none – well, _few_ – of his father's idosyncracies. He had been well educated – he had been sent to the Assassins' School for the general education and had left before Taking Black. Mr Linbury-Court, who had been Art Master prior to Gillian, had reccomended him to the Royal Art College, the Art School next to the Museum, which Gillian had also attended. She'd vaguely known him as a student; their years there had overlapped. Toby had gone there young, at fifteen, but he had been a star pupil.

Gillian looked down at Ruth's intense expression as she studied the painting. She wondered why Ruth made her so maternal. It was probably down to being unmarried and in her thirties, suddenly being made aware the biological clock only had so much go in its spring and couldn't be rewound. It was _uncomfortable_.

"The Deposition of Brutha on the Turtle." Gillian said, reading off the title-card displayed near to the painting. "Presented in the form of a tryptych."

"By Kristina van der Weymout." Ruth read. "That's interesting. Most of the famous artists on the walls here were men. I didn't know there were any famous lady painters."

"There's Danni." Gillian reminded her. Ruth made a little shrug. She didn't want to be rude, not about a grown-up and not about a grown-up who was Gillian's friend, but _Daniellerina Pouter_...

"Yes. There's Danni." Ruth said. It felt safest. "Kristina van der Weymout did _very_ realistic faces. The way she does heads. So real they're almost talking!"

"You only get to be this good once in a lifetime." agreed Gillian. "She never did anything this good again." **(3)**

Gillian did not add that the unfortunate Kristina, exiled from Phlegmders to Quirm, had become obsessed in later life with depicting the psyche. Art at the time had overlapped the nascent study of anatomy; Kristina had reasoned the human soul must be in there somewhere, and had done some freelance dissecting in her search for it. Woodcut broadsheets had depicted her as _the Psyche Killer_.

Gillian Lansbury felt a huge relief that her career had only ever allowed her to become a competently good artist. Being a genius did not bear thinking about. _Competently good_ spared you the worst of it.

 _It stoppped making sense for her in Quirm_ , Gillian reflected. _One minute you're doing pictures of buildings and food, and then..._ She pondered on the tendency of really great artists to step across the intangible line between more-or-less everyday sanity and... the other thing... and looked down at Ruth, who was still intently studying the picture. _At least she's being brought up right_ , Gillian thought. _Loving parents. Supportive sisters. Happy home. Good understanding school. There's a good chance she'll stay sane..._

She heard the familiar voice behind her saying "Gillian!" and turned to say hello.

It was Sir Reynard Stitched. A tall thin man, the walking embodiment of cultural refinement, a man whose accent might have _begun_ as the crude oil of everyday Morporkian, but which had been through the oil refinery of cultural sensitivity and emerged at the other end as something like the vocal equivalent of kerosene, was genuinely pleased to see her. He took her hand and smiled in genuine delight.

"So nice to see you, my dear!" he said. It _had_ emerged sounding like _"Syooooh naiiice to say you, my dheahur_!" spoken in a leisuredly slow drawl, but those who dealt with Sir Reynard had learnt to make allowances and do the necessary sort of mental translation. Gillian had heard from wizards that there was a fabled creature out there in the infinite twists and turns of the Multiverse called a Babel Fish, that once inserted in your ear did the translating for you. She suspected that anyone born and brought up in Ankh-Morpork, who had to make sense of every possible accent and dialect on the Disc as a consequence of everyday interactions in this city, didn't actually _need_ a Babel Fish. It came built-in.

"I mentioned to Toby that we don't nearly see enough of you." Sir Reynard said. "Lady Stitched said the same thing, somewhat rather more emphatically. I expect your work at the School keeps you very busy?"

Gillian agreed.

"Just between you and me, Lady Stitched was quite vocal on the idea that she'd like to see a lot more of you, and that she wasn't frightfully keen of the idea of an unmarried son over thirty who doesn't seem to be doing anything about it that she can see. Up to you both, of course, but I consider Toby could do worse."

Sir Reynard smiled benignly at her. Gillian, understanding, smiled back. _I've been running Raven House for a long time_ , she thought. _I took over from Johanna when she left to get married. And she'd been training me to take over for some time. Who are my possible successors? A nice guy like Toby. Marriage. I move out. I still get to see Ruth. And Famke, except in my Art classes, becomes somebody else's problem._

Sir Reynard looked down.

"This is your ward, Gillian?" he asked, benignly. "The gifted child I have heard so much about?"

Ruth, intent on studying the artwork, spared him a brief look. He wasn't nearly as interesting as a van der Weymout.

"She is." Gillian said, with unconcealed pride. "Actually, I'm Ruth's Godsmother now. Her parents asked if in the circumstances I'd like to be. I said yes. Who wouldn't?"

Then Ruth stepped over the security line.

The Royal Art Gallery had instituted better security for a long time now. It had all begun when the Pouter painting of _Man with Dog_ had gone. Closely followed by the theft of Methodia Rascal's masterwork, _The Battle Of Koom Valley_. Even Reynard Stitched had acknowledged that if a painting ten feet high by sixty or seventy feet long could be stolen without anyone noticing, security at the Royal Gallery needed to be radically overhauled.

The security line on the floor was a part of it. The painted yellow line approximately four feet in front of the artworks on the wall meant they could still be appreciated, but not from so closely that the pictures could actually be touched. Descriptive notes about each work were mounted on stands along this line. The distance was necessary: paintings could not only be stolen. It wasn't unknown for them to be vandalised. Art could stir odd emotions in people. And now and again, you got people coming along with paintboxes who sincerely thought the not-so-good bits, or the rather faded hazy areas in need of restoration, could be _improved._ Hence the security line and the polite notice asking patrons not to step across it.

At each end of the line, there was a cherub on the wall, in eye-line of each other. Cherubs, a sort of more decorative indoor gargoyle, were employed as security guards. The moment Ruth stepped through their mutual gaze to look more closely at whatever was fascinating her, the moment she broke their eye-line, a high-pitched siren scream began. It was the cherubs expressing alarm, as they were trained to.

"Oh, hell..." said Gillian Lansbury. Sir Reynard laid a reassuring hand on her arm. He motioned to the cherubs to be silent, it was all in hand, and waved back a couple of human security guards who were running into the gallery. He stepped across to join Ruth, who was scrutinising the painting from a lot closer to.

"Could I ask what you find so interesting, young lady?" he asked, in a pleasantly interested voice. He was finding her fascinating too.

Ruth nodded up to him, then indicated the painting.

"I'm right! _I knew_ I was. I just couldn't properly see it from so far away." she said.

"And that is?" Sir Reynard asked, intrigued.

Ruth indicated an area of the painting. She knew not to actually touch: it was bad manners and fingerprints could degrade other peoples' art.

"See where Kristina van der Weymout does the painting of the robes and clothes?" she said. "Here, on the horrid-looking priest in the decorated robes, the one who's ordering the other man in the plain brown robe to be tied to the metal tortoise thing..."

"Deacon Vorbis ordering the martyrdom of the Prophet Brutha." Gillian said. She'd stepped forward to join them, too. "Remember when I taught you what a tryptych is? A painting in three parts meant to be a feature of an altar in a temple?"

"Oh, yes. We were given this by the Omnians when their Convocation decided it was far too gaudy and showy for their Church. " Sir Reynard reflected. "We were lucky. They wanted to burn it. We practically had to snatch it off the bonfire. But do continue. About the robes?"

"I was looking here." Ruth said. "Can you see where she used far thicker paint to do the clothes with? You know the way there's a regular pattern in clothes where the threads and things cross over each other? How cloth is made? Well, she's used her brush to copy that. You know, how you get that pattern in cloth and things. It's really really obvious. If you look really closely, the paint makes sort of ridges as it dried. And all those little ridges capture light and shadow. It's not on the ground or the sky or the clouds or anything. Just on the clothes. It all makes it look more _real_."

Ruth stood back, shyly. It had, for her, been a long speech. Sir Reynard and Gillian inclined forwards to study the detail of the painting.

"Do you know, I believe the child is _right_?" Sir Reynard Stitched said, at length. Then the City's foremost expert in Art looked at Ruth, and then at Gillian.

"Remarkable." he said, after a long pause. "Utterly remarkable."

He stepped back with Gillian, leaving Ruth to continue her art appreciation. Ruth was wondering if the artist had also exploited the texture of the underlying canvas to emphasise details of the clothing by using thinned-down washes of paint here and there, on the background characters who didn't need to be painted in so much detail. It was an interesting thought to pursue. She was only half-aware of the background conversation.

 _-She paints and draws as if she was three times older. And she's self-taught, too! Neither of her parents has any sort of artistic skill. The older sister has a bit of musical talent, admittedly. And the_ **middle** _sister_... there was the sort of silence that suggested a shudder _. Well, let's say I'm her Housemistress. And I've got to teach that one Art, Gods help me._

 _-So you got the wrong sister as your official pupil. Can't be helped. This is the young lady? The one where you showed me samples of her work? An amazing budding talent!_

 _-She is, isn't she?_

 _-What school does she attend? I wonder if we could get her into the Art College?_

 _-She's at Seven-Handed Sek's, at least till she's eleven. Her mother isn't decided yet, but she could come to the Assassins' School, at least for the general education._

 _-Which means at fourteen, we could make a case for her to come to us. You've sent us some talented people, Gillian. Normally the lower entrance age is seventeen, but if a suitable prospect has completed their general education elsewhere..._

 _-She's also musically gifted. The Royal College of Music could make a strong case. And it depends on Ruth herself and which way she wants to go._

 _-It would be a shame to lose a talent like this to mere music. Well, not "mere", obviously, as serious music is an art-form in itself, but it isn't Art, all the same... You must keep an eye on her, Gillian._

 _-Oh, I will!_

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork**_

Doctor von Ubersetzer heaved a deep resigned sigh. He realised a muscle in the side of his face was twitching. He looked down at the girl seated at the piano. The girl, a pleasant-seeming boyish redhead with freckles, looked up at him and seized the opportunity to stop playing.

"Herr Doktor?" she said, politely.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." he said, slowly. "What has that poor abused piano done to _you_? You approach playing a sensitive and finely tuned musical instrument as though it were a client, subject to inhumation. And you have, by the sound of it, accepted a contract to inhume that piano, with Extreme Prejudice."

Doktor von Ubersetzer had been trying to improve Famke's musical skills for two terms now, with no success. And it wasn't getting any better.

He'd been a music teacher for long enough now to know that with some pupils, it would never get any better. But he still had to get at least a passing grade from the ones who – even at eleven – everybody knew were going to stay on to Take Black. Musical proficiency was mandatory for the well-rounded Assassin. And the daughter of Doctor Smith-Rhodes was, _everyone_ knew, going to follow in her mother's footsteps. Some things were destined. Famke was graded as above-average in most disciplines and subjects. Everything necessary for the Assassin. She'd even taken the Vimes Run at an absurdly early age and had got a lot further than students five or even six years older who were on the Black. Even Sam Vimes had said he'd mark her down as one to watch in future. Alice Band, the notoriously hard-to-impress Alice, had said she was an incredible prospect. Famke's future, provided she didn't self-destruct, was assured. The only real blot on her record, apart from a questionable attitude towards discipline and School rules, was this one _still-seen-as-a-core proficiency_ – music.

The Honourable Miss Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons was not good at music. The Doctor sighed. The girl's mother was a staffroom colleague. Johanna was a fine woman. She was always sympathetic and took care to apologise after Famke's music lessons.

"Manfred, I'm so _sorry_." Johanna had said. "We tried our best. With the piano lessons. To prepare her."

"Do not distress yourself, _gnadige Frau Doktor_." he had replied. "Alas, some children are simply not musically gifted. I hear your younger daughter has a musical talent?"

Johanna had patted his arm. " _Ja_. If we make the decision thet Ruth should come here, et least for the general education, she may be a consolation to you. You are elways welcome to visit. Perheps to hear Ruth play piano."

"I should like that. _Dankie, Frau Doktor_."

Von Ubersetzer had reflected that at least for Johanna, _her_ slower pupils only ran the risk of assaulting their teacher's ears with screams as they were, for instance, mauled by a leopard or savaged by a bear. Compared to some of the things he faced every day, that noise would be positively musical.

And now he was facing a girl who was to the piano what B.S. Johnson was to good design. He took a deep breath.

"You know, miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. I was pleased, when your mother was a mature student at this Guild, to hear her most competent guitar playing, and that she accompanied herself in a clear and striking singing voice which was pleasant to hear. I was pleased to aware her a satisfactory grade. Admittedly, when the _words_ of the song were translated for me at a later date, I had to accept they could be interpreted as being _bellicose_ and _inflammatory_. **(4)** But I only needed to concern myself with her musical competence."

Famke thought.

"Oh. I've heard some of the songs people sing. From the Other Country. Was it the one about..."

Von Ubersetzer cut her short.

"And some years later, your aunt came to me. She had no proficiency in instruments. However, as she was a most capable long-distance runner, with excellent lungs and breathing, I reasoned that your Aunt Mariella could sustain a sung note and had enough musical sensibility to carry a tune with her voice. I sent her to operatic singing lessons. In which she excelled. Alas, Madame Bjorksdottir tells me never to send you to her ever again for a vocal assessment."

He shook his head. Bjork Bjorksdottir had sent her back to him with a note saying "your problem, Manfred."

"Then I was pleased to deal with your two cousins. Emma was a most capable cellist. Not a great one, merely capable. Johanna had a talent for woodwind instruments. Although I suspect her motivation for playing piccolo was to carry an instrument that could double as a blowpipe small enough to slip into a pocket. And today I get _you_."

Famke bowed her head demurely. Around her the class had stopped as One Raven were watching to see what happened next. Sonia Merriwether had joked that Famke didn't so much play scales as deposit limescale. You know, the hard scabby stuff that clogs kettles when the water boils off. Famke felt irked that Sandra Venturi, who could play piano rather well, was smirking, enjoying her discomfort. Famke briefly considered the sort of accident where a heavy piano lid slammed closed on Sandra's fingers...

"We are going to be spending seven years together, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." the Doctor went on. "Seven _long_ years. In which I am responsible for getting you to some sort of acceptible musical proficiency."

Doctor von Ubersetzer went ominously silent for a few moments as both considered the horrible reality.

"Because there are so many kinds of music, and because music is integral to the ethos of this Guild, I am privileged enough to receive many teaching assistants who each have their own proficiency in a particular field." he said. "Therefore, in order for the next seven years to be bearable to all, I am delighted to say you are not going to touch a piano ever again. Unless it is to physically move it from one place to another."

Famke beamed with sincere thanks.

"You will leave this tuition room, and you will report to Miss Glynnie in Practice Room Seven-A. It is several floors down from here, and located for a very necessary reason in the sub-cellar. Be so kind as to pick up your things and depart. Dankie!"

Famke left, feeling huge waves of relief and freedom, at last, from the loathed piano. She wondered what sort of music Miss Glynnie taught and what sort of a teacher she'd be. But it couldn't be worse than piano... and she also wondered why Sandra Venturi had such an evil gloating smirk on her face, and what Sandra knew that she didn't. Never mind, she'd soon find out.

 _ **Spa Lane, Nap Hill, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Johanna Smith-Rhodes sighed a deep resigned sigh.

"You know, Ponder. I sometimes wonder if it was such a good idea to give Ruth the middle name she got. Whether it was tempting fate in any way."

Ponder Stibbons became very grave and attentive. He'd been wondering the same thing too. But he thought quickly and said

"What, _Leonora_? It's a nice name. Ruth Leonora Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. Ruth because of... well, because Ruth is a nice sounding name and, as you pointed out, lots of white people in Howondaland are called Ruth. The fact it's also the first name of a certain Zulu princess is completely coincidental and wasn't on either of our minds _at all_ when we were deciding on a name for her. Leonora because it's your grandmother's name, on the van der Graaf side. I agree that any woman who produced both your mother _and_ a son like Pieter van der Graaf has to be something special. And you completely adored her. Hence it goes to one of our daughters. I appreciate that."

Johanna smiled.

"Thank you, Ponder." she said, sincerely. "It's just that it sounds too like Leonard. You know. As in _Leonard of Quirm_. Look at the way she's turning out. Tempting fate."

Ponder frowned.

"That's like... well, we didn't intend that. If we'd consciously had Leonard in mind when we named her, it might explain a few things. But it's not as if we gave her a _third_ name. You know. _Ruth Leonora Daquirmia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons._ Whatever decides these things might have really chosen to oblige us then."

"Don't even _joke_ about that, Ponder." Johanna said. "The poor girl's getting too many inspirations as it is."

 _ **The Embassy Of The Republic Of Rimwards Howondaland, Scoone Avenue, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Bekki had flown back to Ankh-Morpork for family reasons. It was May. Her sixteenth birthday was coming up soon and it had been a useful chance to get Boetjie, her growing Pegasus foal, used to long flights in her company as well as habituating him to the second half of the equation that made the Pegasus Service so formidable. This meant the crawstep, the secret of the NacMacFeegle that meant a Pegasus plus crew could appear _anywhere_ on the Disc in a matter of minutes after setting out from Ankh-Morpork. Even if another state got Pegasii, the thinking went, the Feegle controlled the Crawstep. And the Feegle were notoriously unbiddable. Ankh-Morpork and Lancre controlled the flying horses. A newborn Pegasus bonded to a witch of its choosing practically at birth. And the only people in the Gods' creation (other than Keldas) who could command Feegle were witches. And practically all known Witches trained in Lancre. Where the Pegasii were now bred. A witch bonded to her Pegasus. She would build a close relationship not only to her mount, but to the Feegle who would be her flight navigator. Those three essential components therefore made the Service what it was – answerable nominally to King Verence of Lancre, who was its Colonel-in Chief, but a man who delegated this role to Patrician Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork, provided Vetinari used it only for ethically responsible and pacifistic purposes.

It suited all parties involved equally well.

Bekki reflected that she'd been saddled with Wee Archie Aff The Midden as her Flight Navigator, whether she wanted him or not. She had decided to make the most of it, and her resolutely cheerful young Feegle had got her to Ankh-Morpork, this time, with only one unscheduled diversion which had led them to pop into Disc-space somewhere over Quirm. Which was, by Wee Archie's standards, pinpoint navigation.

She had stabled Boetjie at the Air Police station at Pseudopolis Yard, a necessary thing for any Pegasus pilot visiting the city, picked up her bags, accepted Commander Vimes' handshake and a reminder she was signing up in the next draft of Watch recruit trainees in June, then went to her family on Spa Lane. It was good to catch up with her sisters and parents again, reassure herself that Mum was completely recovered after her heart operation, and above all to relax before the annual Witch Trials, where, with not much formal ceremony but a great deal of intent and approval from her peers, she would be acclaimed as a fully-fledged Witch in her own right and worthy to go out and take up her own Steading somewhere, should she wish it and should the right opening come up for her. Another Rite of Passage, with a capital R.

And of course there was Rimwards Howondaland's National Day, the Day of Independence, celebrating victory over Ankh-Morpork and the birth of a nation.

This was celebrated at the Embassy. It became a focal point of the expatriot community, with a never-ending braai in the garden, a band playing, much singing, drinking and festivity. There was a necessary religious service and singing of the Anthem and raising of flags, but it was a relaxed family-and-friends occassion for the community. Bekki found herself joining in with the knot of students from the Assassins' Guild who had all been granted the day off to attend, who were chaperoned in a loose and nominal way by Mum and Auntie Heidi.

Auntie Heidi, very heavily and visibly pregnant, was somebody Bekki wanted to see, and she reassured herself that her aunt, and her baby son-to-be, were healthy and that her new cousin was not likely to end up joining the party as an extra guest justnow. You never knew with these things.

She enjoyed herself, noting with some amusement that her sister Famke had latched on to the band playing at the party and had even been permitted to join in, on a musical instrument of her choosing, and definitely not in any sense at all a piano. And was playing it quite ably, too. Bekki shook her head, reflecting that some things were entirely logical in hindsight even if you could still be taken by surprise by how life managed to unfold.

A little later, she watched the inevitable scratch game of fifteen-a-side that had spontaneously broken out on the Embassy lawn. Uncle Danie was involved. This didn't surprise her at all. Even Mr Vinhuis, the Ambassador, had been prevailed upon to take his jacket off and was acting as referee. Lady Katerina, his wife, was pretending not to hve noticed and she was happily talking to Mum and Auntie Heidi and some of the other women of the community.

Feeling contentedly anonymous and happy not to have any demands made on her, Bekki watched the game. And yes, Famke had insinuated herself in there too. There seemed to be no way of preventing this. She was playing scrum-half for one of the teams, the small, light, nimble player who feeds the ball into the scrum. Nobody seemed put out by this and she was being cheered.

"Force of nature, isn't she?" somebody said, in Vondalaans. Bekki looked round. A guy she recognised as one of Mum's students was standing next to her.

"Your sister. Tykebomb." he added.

"Oh, hi, Ampie. Howzit?" Bekki said, politely.

"Going well, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." he replied. "Even better, as I'm not out there. I avoided that."

"You're white, male and a Vondalaander. How do you avoid compulsory fifteen-a-side?" she asked.

Ampie grinned. Bekki noted the grin. He was otherwise unremarkable and just another guy. But that grin...

"I'm a musician. I explained to your Uncle Danie that I like my fingers unbroken. He was okay about it. Besides, I play crockett."

Bekki was intrigued. She knew that in the Other Country, crockett was seen as a Morporkian sport, unlike fifteen-a-side. Vondalaanders tended not to play it. The Morporkian-speaking half of the nation was quietly passionate about it.

"Crockett? That's the one where you spend five days aiming a ball at some sticks and trying to bat it away, isn't it?"

Ampie du Pris grinned again at her.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons..."

"Bekki. Call me Bekki." she found herself saying.

"Bekki. It is entirely possible you've just summed up the essence of crockett into one short sentence. Which spares you from having to listen to me explaining the rules to you for three whole weeks, while you try to look interested."

"Does that involve breaks for going to the privy?" she asked.

"And I'd allow you to eat occcassionally. I'm not unreasonable." he said.

"So. How does a guy from..."

"Vaaservaal. It's a one-horse town in the Free State. Or was until the horse died of boredom."

"Vaaservaa,l in the Vreistaadt . How does he end up playing crockett?"

Ampie grinned again.

"Compulsory Wednesday afternoon sport. It's a Guild School thing. I was wondering how to stay out of wet muddy fields in this country in winter. Then I realised over here crockett is a summer sport. But the Guild has teams. They train indoors in winter. I signed up, had a try-out, got to train indoors in the dry and sometimes in the warm. Then I realised I quite liked it. No-brainer."

He grinned the grin again.

"You're Doctor Smith-Rhodes' daughter, aren't you? I see you around."

"Ja, but Mum can be quite alright. Not intimidating at all."

There was a silence that went on a little too long for Bekki's liking. Then her sister Ruth walked over.

"Meisie Ruth. How is the music?" Ampie asked, politely.

Ruth looked first at Bekki, then at Ampie.

Like her sisters, Ruth had been brought up bilingually. "Mister Ampie. I know where there's a piano. Would you play with me?" Ruth asked, with seeming eight-year-old naivity.

"Well, I left my trumpet and my saxaphone in my dorm, but I'm sure I can borrow something." Ampie said. He grinned at Bekki again. "I play horns, by the way. But if there's a guitar anywhere, I can pick out a tune or two."

"Let's go, then." Ruth took Ampie by the hand and pulled. He looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Meisie Ruth, your mother might feel better if she knew you were escorted." He said. He looked at Bekki. "Would you consent to escorting your sister, Bekki? So she has a responsible guardian?"

They found themselves in the Embassy's main reception room, which was currently empty. Ruth quickly uncovered the grand piano and seated herself. Ampie had found a guitar. Looking around, Bekki spotted a big upright double bass. She thought she could pick out a few chords on it, the way Alison had shown her with the mandolin...

And then Ampie was standing next to her, showing her where to place her fingers to form chords, where to move her hands on the frets. His hands were on hers, guiding and demonstrating. It was not, she thought, unpleasant. And Ruth was sitting at the piano with a quiet little smile on her face.

Bekki suddenly wondered who was chaperoning who.

And then they were playing music together. That wasn't unpleasant either. And it drew people in. They included Lady Katerina, the Ambassador's wife, who was usually dissaproving of anyone doing things like touching the piano without her permission. But Lady Katerina was an old friend of Mum's. They'd been to school together. She was smiling with approval. Ruth was a gifted pianist. That made it OK. And Mum was watching closely, with one of _those_ unreadable half-smiles on her face. The three played on together as the reception room began filling with people, who listened, applauded, even sang along to some of the old songs and anthems...

At the end, Ampie quietly said

"Bekki, if you don't find the thought unpleasant or distasteful, or my personality to be tedious, it would be pleasant to spend a little time with you. You know. As, perhaps, people who might appreciate spending time together. As, I hope, friends. If that's agreeable to you?"

He looked expectant and slightly worried.

Bekki remembered she was off back to the Chalk in a few days. But, mybe, it might be agreeable. A nice guy, a year or so older than she was, perfectly agreeable, passably good looking, and a great grin... Fighting down the part of her that wanted to squeak "Yes, please!" in a high-pitched voice, and aware of a certain pink tinge creeping in at the edges, she said, as cooly as she could manage, that it might be pleasant, yes. How can we get in touch?

Her sister Ruth smiled, cherubic innocence all over her face...

 _ **To be continued.**_

 _Why has Famke taken an interest in music all of a sudden? Why has her musical talent exponentially increased to the point where an actual band allows her to play? And on which instrument? All will be revealed._

 _And yes, Assassins are meant to live dangerously and evaluate risks. But is taking an interest in Doctor Smith-Rhodes' oldest daughter a wise thing to do for a senior boy? How does Bekki accomodate this new complication in her life? How do her parents take it? Read on._

 _And Ruth gets a trial to surmount..._

* * *

 **(1)** As opposed to her cross to bear.

 **(2)** South African comedian Trevor Noah, a man multi-lingual in many languages, did a routine about how German sounds, to Germans, when spoken by somebody whose first language is Afrikaans. An Afrikaans accent in German makes the speaker sound as if they aren't _just_ Austrian. The Afrikaans accent in German evokes a very specific sort of Austrian. According to Trevor, it makes a South African speaking German sound like Adolf Hitler whipping up the crowd at a Nuremburg rally. Yes. Saffies in Germany are doing a permanent Hitler impression. And we think South Africans speaking English can sound a bit discordant…

 **(3)** OK. Bad puns again. There's a Flemish artist called Rogier van der Weyden who did religious-themed art like _The Deposition of Christ_. Apparently all artists are capable of going psycho and some even become killers.

 **(4)** go to my tale _**The Graduation Class**_ , in which Johanna is nineteen and newly arrived in Ankh-Morpork.

* * *

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where ideas and concepts go to stay fresh in the fridge whilst awaiting the audition call.**_

 **Extract from pm to reader Brithund:**

 **Ooh, good points! I'm attempting to go deeper here and work out the necessary demarcation lines between Assassin guild secrets and prerogatives, and those military skills normally undertaken by Special Forces such as, for instance, the SBS/SAS, Navy Seals, et c. There has to be an overlap. Especially when graduate Assassins are, in the necessary order of things, called up to do National Service in their nations' armed forces. Or might elect to become career soldiers afterwards (As commissioned officers, naturally. You can't have Ladies and Gentlemen in the ranks, save as a necessary progression through the recruit training induction). How does the Guild view the necessary and inevitable leakage of its trade skills into general military knowledge? That's a valid point. I have informal agreements and negotiation going on in the background with the Guild insisting on advance knowledge of how Crowbar Dreyer proposes to employ local members, together with the Guild having right of veto and control over what assignments might be offered to, say, Mariella Smith-Rhodes and Horst Lensen. But Johanna S-M, and Emma Roydes, who have elected to remain full-time career Army officers, would not be under such a veto - it would be accepted that, for now, their line manager is Crowbar Dreyer and they take his orders. Temporarily, they are not under Guild management or subject to its veto. The same will apply to Assassins on the other side: Sissi N'kima is an indunala in Ruth's regiment. But other Zulu Assassins, not part of any impi, are in the same position as Mariella and Horst: subject to recall, but as nominal civilians, the Guild gets veto on their employment. And a complete freelancer like Rivka ben-Divorah can, unless the Guild (or the Institute) says "no", go ahead and please herself. If the money's right, that is.**

 **Air Forces are a new and largely undeveloped thing on the Disc. But even in "Jingo", we saw the beginnings of one - when Klatch impounded every magic carpet it could find and impressed them into military service. Indicating that even in Klatch, these are not common everyday objects. And Nanny Ogg, with Casanunder as her air-gunner, gets into aerial dog-fighting territory, when dealing with airborne elves on yarrow-stalks. Leonard of Quirm speculates on how great and peaceful a world it would be if men could fly, view great cities from above, and therefore make borders obsolete. I like to think in developing commercial carpet-flights on the one hand, and also speculating on the offensive uses of flight, I'm dealing with both sides of this coin. It's worth mentioning that thus far, Vetinari is insisting the Pegasus Service be used for non-military purposes only. But using it to drop hints as to what else a combination of flying horses, and Feegle navigators capable of craw-stepping, might be employed for.**

 **And I do love the "carpet bombing" thing - even though the Crowbar is really going to have to hunt around for sufficient carpets to make it viable. And, crucially, qualified pilots willing to work for him. I am, however, still developing the idea of Ruth's ground-to-air defensive systems. The next time he violates her airspace, he may well find a nasty surprise waiting for him. Watch this space!**

 **Damn, just had a flurry of ideas for a continuation of my Prospectus for the Assassins' Guild School, this time a chapter dealing with the freedom of religious expression traditionally granted to Guild students and reassurance to parents that the spiritual welfare of their sons and daughters will not be neglected. A listing of full and part-time Chaplains and spiritual counsellors to students and their areas of authority, together with provision made for the variant religious needs of pupils… I want to write this. It has legs. At least ten religions. And one non-religion with a surprising but logical non-Priestess. Her identity has only just occurred to me…**

 **And… not sure if I can work it into this tale. But an idea concerning young Ruth. She and Famke, walking about town, find a strange music shop they could swear had not been there the previous day. Seeing musical instruments, Ruth goes in. Famke follows. They discover what, to a musician's eyes, is a treasure-trove of musical instruments guarded by an old lady doing some knitting. Famke is dissuaded from trying some out but excitedly speculates on their use as weapons. Ruth notices all the instruments have numbered tickets attached and notes there doesn't seem to be a Number One anywhere. The old lady shrugs in an off-hand way and explains "it got sold, love. Bit short on guitars at the moment. If you're interested, Number Two has been here for ages…"**

 **The instrument with the ticket number Two is a strange keyboard, standing on spindly metal legs that Ruth observes can be folded down so it can be carried. She remarks there are no strings or hammers. How does it work? The old lady shrugs and says** _ **that**_ **sort of keyboard don't need no strings or claviers, love.**

 **Ruth sees the word "HAMMOND" on a plate attached to the impossibly thin, shallow, box. She touches a key. And a voice in her head whispers**

 **JON LORD. RAY MANZAREK. ALAN PRICE. RICK WAKEMAN. ALLEN LANIER. Then it pauses, and adds RUTH LEONORA SMITH-RHODES STIBBONS, PLAY ME.**

 **Ruth gets a series of images in her mind. The faces that go with the names, yes. But most importantly, snatches of the tunes they wrote and performed. (If there were a soundtrack, at this point it would do a musical medley of** _ **"Wring That Neck", "L.A. Woman", "House of the Rising Sun", "Fanfare To The Common Man",**_ **and the intro to** _ **"Joan Crawford"**_ **…)**

 **Ruth is at this point moved to do the theme that popped into her head on the harpsichord at home, the "You Must Be In Time, Child" theme. The sound the keyboard makes feels…** _ **right**_ **. Exactly the sound she has in her head, but which no Discworld keyboard has ever been able to reproduce. Until now.**

 **The old lady grimaces.**

" **Whoa, not THAT one!" she objects. "That's as bad as the "Pathway to Paradise" thing on the guitar, that is!" (5)**

 **Ruth is allowed to buy the Hammond for four dollars "because you're a nice sweet kiddie and I can see as you have a talent. 'Sides. I've been looking to move that one on for** _ **years**_ **!"**

 **She borrows the cash off Famke. Together they get the new keyboard home. Neither notices the shop disappearing into thin air behind them. Eventually her father and older sister Bekki realise what it is…. Mainly by listening with a magic-user's ear…**

 **Don't think I'll use this in this tale. But got to capture these ideas before they evaporate…**

 ** **(5)** To music shop proprietors, Deep Purple's "Child In Time" is to keyboards what "Smoke on the Water" is to guitars…**


	37. Liefde en Romanse

_**Strandpiel 37**_

 _ **liefde en romanse – love and romance**_

 _ **We're back! Taking an unexpectedly darker turn with warclouds looming – but all to set the scene for Bekki arriving in Howondaland, which will be soon. Continuing the logic of the story from the last episode which is now apparently becoming a mighty saga of interlocked family and friends on two continents, not just about Bekki. Again first imprint, will revise for typos. Lots of ideas, too little time. I have MANY ideas sketched out and roughly plotted. It is just a matter of finding time... too many ideas and scenes, in fact – all in my head and jostling for priority! i will come back and add footnotes in Version Two - just want to get this out there first as it's been a long wait.  
**_

 _ **Old joke:**_

 _ **Q. What do you call somebody who hangs around with musicians?**_

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

It was a warm sunny morning in May. Warm sunny mornings with clement blue skies above did occassionally happen in Ankh-Morpork, even without magical or divine intervention. Bekki, her time in the Chalk Country over and with a few blissful free weeks to herself before her life began again in June, was enjoying being at home with her family. It was now a year since she had left home to begin her new life as a Witch. Her sixteenth birthday would happen soon – this was a good reason for her to be at home with precious free time – and there were two big rites of passage into adult life on her horizon.

She couldn't do anything about the uncomfortable fact she would very soon have to do City Watch recruit training. It wasn't a career vocation she'd have chosen for herself. But having been selected for the Pegasus Service made this unavoidable – all new Pegasus pilots also did the training, no exceptions. The Pegasus Service was unique and semi-autonomous, it technically and nominally belonged to the King of Lancre due to Politics, but it worked for Ankh-Morpork, also due to Politics. And it had been born out of the City Watch Air Police, so it also belonged to the City Watch, due to Sir Samuel Vimes. The Air Police was staffed by uniformed Watchwomen who were also pilots. So the Service was an extention of modern Witchcraft, women attracted to the organisation by the siren call of flight and that Ankh-Morpork was _the_ world centre of excellence in flight technomancy. The deal for being at the cutting edge of flight was to be fully badged Watchwomen and to put in at least a couple of shifts a week as policewomen on the beat, in her case as the other demands of the Service permitted. There was always a squad of Air Witches on rotating call at Pesudopolis Yard. These would soon include Bekki. So she had to be trained.

She sighed. At least she could do the other thing. Which was to work up her performance piece for the annual Witch Trials. She knew _exactly_ what she was going to present. The focus and concentration involved took her mind out of the unpleasant ordeal ahead. And there was lots of space out here on the back lawn. That was important too...

A small audience had gathered to watch her train. Her mother had taken a little time out of her day to observe. A couple of the house servants and a gaggle of interested house-goblins were clustered by the kitchen door, her mother intent, the servants both fearful and appreciative at a display of controlled _muti,_ the goblins excited and chattering among themselves. Bekki cleared them from her mind, mustered the magical force she'd need – she felt it surging up inside her – then directed and released it in short controlled bursts...

Afterwards, she dispelled the residual force, then said she was feeling a little bit hungry for some reason.

"Better eat, then." her mother said, patting her on the shoulder. Johanna really needed to be over at the Zoo. She was running late. But making time for her oldest daughter was important too. Her duties as Zoo Director could wait a little. And she had just spent half an hour in quiet appreciation of the display: qualities such as focus, concentration, methodical planning, dedicated application of skills and a healthy respect for potential danger were exactly the sort of thing she liked to see in her Assassin students. Watching her own daughter apply all these attributes, impeccably, in the service of Witchcraft, was something that made her very proud indeed. She just wished Ponder had been here to see it too. But he was off on a professional jolly and would be away for a couple of days: something to do with Mustrum Ridcully squaring off against Dean Henry at Braseneck College over in Pseudopolis, some professional disagreement or other. Ponder, along with his old friend Adrian Turnipseed, had to be there to restrain their respective Arch-Chancellors, to prevent academic bloodshed.

Johanna, with her experience of departmental wrangling, strongly suspected that any useful business or agreements between Unseen and Braseneck wouldn't be concluded by the two older wizards: Ponder and Adrian would spend twenty minutes in a pub over a beer and sort it all out with a handshake. Then present Ridcully and the Dean with a done deal.

"Dorothea?" Johanna asked her cook. Dorothea had taken a break to watch the show too. The cook, with a typical Howondalandian fear of _muti_ , had huddled with the two housemaids and the gardener for mutual reassurance, both scared and thrilled at the magical display they'd witnessed; Johanna suspected they'd only stayed because they absolutely respected Miss Rebecka, and knew she wasn't an evil sorceror who'd turn the _muti_ on them. Besides, Bekki had treated Dorothea's varicose veins, the scourge of middle-aged women who were on their feet all day doing hard work. She'd done Blessing's eye infection too. The staff knew Miss Rebecka was a _good_ witch, or the nearest thing to, with healing in her hands.

" _Muti_ makes people hungry." the cook said, smiling. "I can prepare a light snack, madam. Especially for Miss Rebecka."

"It's your birthday on Octeday." Johanna remarked. "We can have a family thing in the evening. I've got the usual Octeday afternoon thing. You know, hosting a few students. Still, the more the merrier, and you know them all."

Bekki understood. Mum and Auntie Heidi had pastoral duties at the School, to students from The Other Country. As a sort of compensation for being forced to attend the unspeakable and dreary service at the Kerk on Octeday morning, the students usually got divided into two groups for a social afternoon, one lot with Mum, the other with Auntie Heidi. Auntie Heidi usually got the foot-the-ball players. Uncle Danie liked interacting with the hearty young _boykies._

"It's nearly summer. It promises to be warm. It's your birthday. We can fire up the _braai_." Johanna decided. "Get a couple of the senior boys who know what they're doing to mind it. They do the work. The rest of us appreciate them for doing the work. We have a plan."

She looked at her daughter with a thoughtful and appreciative eye. Bekki was industriously putting away the large second breakfast that Dorothea had lovingly put in front of her, with a "You must eat, Miss Rebecka. I know the _muti_ makes people hungry. I saw it at home."

Bekki had also found herself putting three spoons of sugar in her tea. Rooibuis tea, naturally. Mum had other sorts, but this was the one the family drank most of, by a long way.

"So you graduate as a Witch soon." Johanna said. "At the Witch Trials."

" _Ja_ , mum." Bekki said, indistinctly. She swallowed and took a long draught of her tea. Expending magic really _did_ make you hungry. And the thing about Witches habitually taking insanely large amounts of sugar in their tea – that wasn't a stereotype.

Johanna was abstemiously nibbling a sweet biscuit with her tea. She'd been married to Ponder Stibbons for long enough now to suspect how this worked. The energy to power and channel magic had to come from somewhere. It must come from the constitution and physical systems of the magic user. In theory, all magic users should therefore be as thin and spare as Esmerelda Weatherwax, or some of the old-time wizards Ponder had described, of the previous generation to the current Faculty. Magic burnt calories. Those calories had to be replaced. Hence Bekki was sitting opposite the table from her, expressing real hunger, and devouring the sort of breakfast Harga's House of Ribs might have called overdoing it a bit. _Well, none of my daughters are going to be anorexic_ , Johanna thought, with a certain pride in a motherly job done well. _And they'll all eat well and burn it off._

"I think wizards never start off fat, mum." Bekki said. "They have to eat a lot to compensate for the magic they expend. But then they get older and do less actual magic. But they still eat as if they are. They've got the habit by then. Then you get the Faculty."

Johana nodded.

"That makes sense." she said. "Your father still handles a lot of magic every day. At the High Energy Magic Building. So he's stayed pretty much in shape. Unlike some of the others."

Dad's never really been into big meals, anyway." Bekki said. "I mean, not stupid insane big Wizard meals."

"Or tea with three sugars." her mother agreed. "There's a witch habit you've got yourself into."

"It comes with the job, mum." Bekki said. "Mrs Aching always made sure I got at least one meal a day. You know, during lambing season. But if you're a witch, sometimes it's so busy that if you don't make time, you miss meals and live on hot tea with lots of sugar. It felt that way during lambing on the high Chalk."

"So there are very few fat Witches." Johanna remarked. "It balances out, then."

She looked speculatively at Bekki.

"These Witch Trials. You enter competition. You perform your piece. You are judged. And during the day you are graduated."

"Well. No final exam as such, mum. The older witches kind of confer among themselves, and sort of agree. _She's ready to take a steading._ The competition part is something to do while they're deciding. Especially if any Steadings are vacant and they're arguing – deciding among themselves – which of the newcomers is fit to take over. For instance, Sophie's almost sure to be offered the Steading that covers the horse studs around Lancre. She's been covering that anyway. This just makes it official. They'll decide it needs a horse witch, and she's it. She should be able to do caesareans now, after you showed her. I took her to a slaughterhouse a day or two later, to get her used to things being cut up. She was a bit wobbly for a while, but I think she's forcing herself to get over it, as she's going to _have_ to do it."

Johanna nodded.

"When she comes here to do her Watch training. We'll take her to the Zoo and show her practice. See how she gets on. And speaking of the Zoo, I'm due there in an hour. You may as well come along. My class should be there by then and I can trust my teaching assistant to allocate work. All I need to do is make sure they know I'm watching."

Johanna smiled slightly.

"The students respect you, too, if you haven't noticed. I suspect the pointy hat has as much to do with it as the fact that I'm your mother. Also that you can call Famke to heel. She grumbles and she grouses, but your sister does as you tell her."

Johanna smiled.

"Wish she would for _me_. When you're finished with that wizard-sized breakfast, you can perhaps fire up your broomstick and ferry me to the Zoo to save time? Dankie."

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Ankh-Morpork.**_

"Have you got a death-wish or something, Ampie?" demanded Simon Anstruther, heatedly. Some of their peers in the Lower Sixth nodded emphatically. To them, they were watching a colleague on the brink of a slippery slope with lots of sharp spiky things waiting at the bottom.

Andrijs duPris, known to his peers as Ampie, looked up at him and smiled slightly.

"Don't see whet the fuss is ebout." he said, mildly. "I'm still turning out for the School First Eleven on Seturday es usual. If thet's whet's worrying you."

Simon, the Captain of the School's Crockett team, looked sternly and worriedly at his fifth-order batsman and very useful spin-bowler. Losing a batsman who had promise worried him. They didn't grow on trees, even if colonial types could be surprisingly good at Crockett. The team squad had Fourecksians and a couple of Ghatians, even a Klatchistani. And now one from Rimwards Howondaland.

"Very yes!" said Imrah Khan. He scowled down from under his culturally approved school turban. It was regulation black and had the Guild School badge on the binding puttee. "This _bhindi_ you are seeing..."

Ampie pretended innocence. He carried on oiling his bat, polishing the linseed oil into the willow.

" _Ag_ , I know it's one of the rules of crockett." Ampie said. "You meet a girl. Whetever heppens, Crockett comes first. If it helps, Bekki might show on Seterday. You know. To watch. I'm not sure if she's the sort of girl who'll help make the sendwiches end the cakes end tea for the interval, but you cennot hev _everything_." **(1)**

"Yes." Simon said, flatly. "Ampie. It's not that you're seeing a girl. Best of luck to you. But... _this_ girl? You _know_ who her mother is?"

The rest of the Crockett squad nodded. One or two shuddered slightly.

" _And_ she's a witch." Mick Gatting said. Mick was not the sort of guy who scared easily. He was short and thickset and could face a crockett ball coming his way at great speed without flinching. But some concepts, when they all stacked up together, were intrinsically scary.

" _And_ she can put a collar and a leash on the Tykebomb." Simon added. "Granted, big sisters get privileges. But Tykebomb. _Her little sister_. Don't all these things worry you at all, Ampie?"

Ampie shrugged. He wondered about some of these things himself. Doctor Smith-Rhodes had said and done nothing out of the ordinary and he'd wondered if she'd noticed at all. But he felt, in some odd and indefinible way, as if he was being _assessed_ by her. And Famke, the little sister, was now prone to fits of giggling and nudging her friends whenever, for instance, he passed her in the corridor. He shrugged. Little sisters had privileges too, he guessed. He'd known who Rebecka was ever since he'd been in Ankh-Morpork. Rimwards Howondalandians were a community in the city where everyone knew everyone else. They'd been introduced and she knew him by name, like she did most of the bros and meisies at the Guild School. But he'd been aware of a good-natured red-haired meisie who hung out with her mad friends from Seven-Handed-Sek's. Just a gaggle of early teenage girls who squeaked and giggled a lot. He'd been drawn to the dark-haired Hergenian one who swore a lot – and slapped down by her. (he winced at the memory).

Then Bekki had gone off to Lancre. And come back. And he'd seen the older girl with a new eye. A year older and changed, in some indefinite way. And this had drawn him in. The way she spoke Vondalaans really attracted him. Completely fluent, but with some odd quirks of vocabulary and occassionally of grammar. He wanted to hear more of her voice. He'd never heard his native language spoken like this before.

"She's worth knowing." he said, simply. His friends despaired.

Then they went out to practice and the matter was dropped, for now.

 _ **Braseneck College, Pseudopolis:**_

"Hmmmph." Said Mustrum Ricully, Arch-Chancellor.

"I see, Mustrum." said Henry, former Dean and now also Arch-Chancellor.

The two most senior Wizards on the Disc folded their arms and glared at each other across the conference table.

Sir Ponder Stibbons looked across ot his old friend Adrian Turnipseed, who now had pretty much the same position at Braseneck that Ponder had at Unseen. They shared the sort of look that knew, mutually, that they'd each have to, metaphorically speaking, grab the back of a belt and drag their respective seniors apart. Neither was looking forward to it.

And then the Duty Wizard came running into the room, looking alarmed.

"What is it, man?" Dean Henry grunted. Ponder and Adrian relaxed as the moment of high tension eased.

"You asked to be kept informed, sir." the duty wizard said. "It's happening again. "Massive random discharges of magic, sir. This one in Ankh-Morpork. With no apparent cause, unless..."

"Give it here, man." Henry said. He reached out an imperious hand

Ponder glanced over to look. It was pretty much the same sort of print-out HEX would deliver. HEX monitored the psychic ether for this sort of thing. Except that here it was...

"Hmmph. PEX seems pretty definite." Henry grunted. He nodded at Ridcully.

"Massive recent discharge of magic in the hubwards-by-widdershins quarter of the City." he said. "PEX thinks it's somewhere in the Nap Hill region of Ankh. Anything _you_ people are up to. Mustrum? We've been seeing a lot of this stuff lately. Inexplicible, random and not Wizard magic. Doesn't have the right thaumic signature, even for you people from Unseen."

Ridcully smiled slightly.

" _We_ people, Henry? You were one of us. Once."

He took the print-out.

"Stibbons? Fire up HEX and see if he can get a more _precise_ fix than this, would you, lad?"

Ridcully didn't look worried at all, as if he knew something Henry didn't...

"I'll try, sir." Ponder said, taking a mini-omniscope communicator from his pocket. Getting a reliable source of sound to give HEX a voice, even at a distance, had been a triumph. Previously, HEX had relied on using anything nearby with the ability to reproduce sound; the computer techology of the Roundworld, for instance, when he and Johanna had spent time in California. In this world, and outside the H.E.M., HEX had needed to possess a willing volunteer, like a Palace gargoyle, or to speak directly into the mind of somebody wanting to communicate. But the communicator incorporated a specially trained Imp who could relay HEX through an amplifying trumpet.

"HEX? Can you pin down the source of a magical disturbance in the Nap Hill district of Ankh, one big enough to be felt and measured here in Pseudopolis?" Ponder asked.

++I can, Professor Stibbons.++ Computing.++ Stand by.++

There was a quiet silence. Ridcully broke it.

"I'm just bettin', Henry. There's been a lot of this sort of thing in recent weeks? Flashes and bussts of strong magic, and it clusters, you get more of it all the way out to Lancre and the Chalk? Just a thought, you understand..."

++The source of the magical eruption is Number Eighteen, Spa Lane, Nap Hill.++ HEX said. ++Between nine-thirty and ten-fifteen this morning by Dimwell Mean Time.++

"Told you he'd pin it down to the very spot." Ridcully said, proudly. "Hell of an advance on your PEX fellow..."

Then Ridcully paused and looked at Ponder. Ponder Stibbons went a brighter shade of red.

"Errr..." Ponder said. A second voice, like to but different from HEX, spoke from the omniscope.

 _~~The disturbance is centred on a person called Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons.~~Aged approximately sixteen~~SQUAWK!~~_

"And we can identify the _person_." Henry said, with pride. "Your daughter, I believe, young Stibbons?"

"She's a witch, sir. Just Rebecka Smith-Rhodes. Witches take their mother's name. Always."

Ponder wondered what she'd been up to, _this_ time.

"Witches." Ridcully said, reflectively. "Witch-magic. There's your answer, Henry. I suspect nothin' to get alarmed by. HEX, can you see what the girl's been doin?"

++Enough residual magic remains for me to reconstruct the events.++Observe++

The wizards crowded round the omniscope and watched a replay of Bekki working up her performance piece for the Witch Trials. Ponder felt both relief and pride.

"I say." Henry Dean remarked. "The girl's _good_ , isn't she? Hell of an improvement on her father!"

"I'll say she's good." Ridcully said, basking with pride. "Taught her that meself. That's why she's good at it."

"But what's it _for_?" Henry asked. Ridcully grinned.

"Think about it, Henry. The nearer you get to Lancre and the Chalk, the more discharges of magic your PEX fellow is detectin'. And at _this_ time of year. Brings anythin' to mind? The Witch Trials, for instance? _Lots_ of young gels practicin'. Who ain't learnt to shield the magic yet. But then they _want_ it to be seen, so that everybody _knows_ they're witches. That's the point, don't y'see? They're apprentices about to be passed fit. So they're doin' their master pieces. Also, anyone attendin' who isn't a witch gets to see. And they _remember_. That Witches can do magic, and don't you forget it. Good for the image."

He nodded at Ponder.

"Tell the girl, well done from her grandfather, he's impressed. Also that we need to teach her how to shield the magic from the wrong sort of people. You've got magical defences set up at home, lad? With respect to Johanna, that's not the sort of fight she's trained for. Although anythin' comes sniffin' round, whatever shape it is, she'd have a damn good go at it. Especially if it threatens the girls."

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons made her way down to Music Practice and Rehearsal Room 7a with an excitement she'd never in her life before had associated with the practice of music. The whole tedious, dull and tormenting subject area was now beginning to make sense to her. And to cap it all, she'd found a teacher she really liked and wanted to study with. Most of them were varying degrees of droning voice and mordant weary sarcasm at the front of the classroom, although Famke had to admit some of them were okay. Miss Lansbury's art classes, for instance. Miss L, old Artsy-Fartsy, had correctly assessed what would hold the interest of an adolescent female class and had thrown in a few male nudes. Not blatantly so, but enough to get the class watching with bated breath for the next iconograph slide, to see if there was a willy in it. And when breath was bated, they even listened to her lecture and came away knowing something about classical Brindisian art, about Carravanio and Humvie and the rest.

Famke was even beginning to read music. Or at least, one particular and relevant line of staves on the score. Her teacher was being thorough here too, pointing out that if she wanted to play _seriously_ , she needed to be able to follow a score to be aware of how her part fitted into what everybody else in the orchestra was doing at any given moment.

And it had all begun when old Ubersetzer had banished her from his piano class. That cow Sandra Venturi had sniggered about Famke being given the Wayne Drooley option. You know, the one the Music Department gives to remedial cases. _Thickos_.

Famke was vaguely aware who Wayne Drooley had been. His name was a byword for the extreme remedies the School found for Assassins who were absolutely, irredeemably, non-intellectual and uncultured but who, nevertheless, the Guild wanted to see graduate for whatever reason. Apparently her Uncle Horst had been a bit of a Wayne Drooley in his time. Famke found this hard to picture. Aunt Mariella had said, off-handedly, that her uncle _had_ been a bit of a _pielkop, ja._ And a total _bliksem_. Famke had blinked, looking at somebody who was one of her favourite uncles and trying to reconcile the stories with the quiet and good-natured guy in front of her. Her aunt had smiled slightly. Then admitted he'd improved a bit, in the end.

Famke had quietly decided that there would be vengeance and that Sandra was going to pay for the "thicko" comment when the right moment came along, and had allowed Mr Heggerty, a teacher she privately assessed as being a bit of a wet drip, to escort her down into the bowels of the Guild building. This spared her any confrontations with Hall monitors who would demand to know why she wasn't in a classroom in lesson time. **(4)** On the way, he filled her in on what she needed to know about Miss Glynnie.

"When you speak to her, always do it from directly in front of her so she's aware you're speaking. Do not cover your mouth and keep the movement of your lips and face as open as you can..."

Famke's face must have betrayed disbelief. This topped her day off. She was going to be taught music by a teacher who was completely...

Mr Heggerty grinned at her.

"It's not as unbelievable as it seems. You know what they say about that? It doesn't stop the musician hearing the music. It stops them from hearing the distractions."

But even so... Famke wasn't surprised to be led deeper underneath the School. Ankh-Morpork was built on quite a few previous Ankh-Morporks. The Guild School, in certain specialised and practical respects, went a long way down. For some classes and specialised resources, space was not a problem, much. Below ground level, there seemed to be quite a lot of it. And it was a _long_ way from Doktor von Ubersetzer's light and airy perfomance studio on an upper floor of the School. A long way below.

Famke sensed a dull rhythmic throbbing in the distance. She wondered why she could feel it rather than hear it. Mr Heggerty smiled slightly.

"Welcome to Music Practice and Rehearsal Room 7a." **(5)** he said. He braced himself, then opened the door. And Famke realised that music was about more than just piano scales. Her epiphany awaited.

Miss Glynnie turned out to be a wiry, spare, woman in her thirties with long unbound black hair. Dressed in black, she looked like a certain type of Witch. Mr Heggerty made the introductions, and Miss Glynnie looked as if she was really pleased to meet Famke. This made a change; generally teachers who only knew Famke by reputation and family history seemed wary of her.

"Come on in! Welcome to our happy band!" the teacher said, in a voice that sounded slightly strange and wrongly stressed, as if she'd had to learn it from a book or something.

Miss Glynnie took Famke by the arm and began leading her around the large cellar room – at least three or four times the size of the usual classroom, it had to be, given the impressive collection of instruments – large ones, space consuming ones, which necessarily took up a lot of the room. There was a row of individual practice cubicles. Famke noticed they were also soundproofed. Miss Glynnie had explained that the very best Dwarfish acoustics and soundproofing baffles had gone into the design of her workspace, with no expense spared. Famke felt she could understand why.

"Here we have xylophones, various kinds, both metal and wood..."

"Oh." Famke said. Dissappointment welled up for a moment. This was the sort of thing they gave kids in the reception class at Seks to bash on. Little five year old kids. It was just like the Guild to do something like this... shunt the duffer off to spend her Music class bashing a little kid's toy..

"Here we have the Agatean sasara, a sort of vibraphonic instrument..." Miss Glynnie indicated what looked like another xylophone, but suspended vertically from cords. She seemed to become aware of the expression on Famke's face, smiled, then picked up a set of drumsticks and played a trilling lyrical theme on the hanging metal bars. She then gave Famke a look that said "See what's possible?" and put the sticks down.

"Over here, _lithophones_. Troll musical rocks, finely tuned..." she produced another set of sticks, and beat out a rhythm on the stones. "And here's the large concert gong.. originally a temple drum from BangBangDhuc...don't touch that hammer _just_ yet, please, Famke? Thank you."

Famke sighed. She was beginning to see _possibilities_ here. She stepped back, reluctantly, from the large padded hammer that would be used to hit that insanely large gong. Her fingers were itching. She felt a sudden compulsion to make noise. _Loudly_.

Her new teacher smiled, guessing her thoughts.

"The Hergenian lambeg drum, the biggest bass drum on the Disc. At least, the biggest that can be carried strapped to one person. Again, Famke, don't touch the drumsticks? Just yet? Thank you. And this is also from Hergen..."

"The bodhran." Famke said. Shauna O'Hennigan had identified one, in Ruthie's growing collection of musical instruments. Famke had dismissed it as a sort of tambourine without bells, that you played by hitting with a small hand-held stick, very fast. Shauna had said you could learn to play a bodhran quickly enough. Learning to say the fecking name of the fecking thing properly took _longer_.

"Indeed, Famke." Miss Glynnie said. She rattled a heartbeat-fast rhythm on the instrument, then replaced it. "And over here, military kettledrums of various sizes..."

Famke's tour of the wonderful world of percussion instruments took a while. Then her new teacher sat her down.

"I know you can keep time and you at least understand musical scales." Miss Glynnie said. "The way I see it, if you can keep the time and the tempo, you can play a musical instrument. Well, I'm going to teach you percussion. Attend my classes on time, apply yourself, and above all _enjoy yourself_. Music should not be a torment. Now. What do I start you out on, I wonder?"

Famke found herself wearing a military side-drum. She was issued two sticks of the right sort, and then spent the rest of her music lesson learning about the basic beats and repetitive patterns.

"Boring, but necessary." her teacher said. "The job of a drummer is to consistently keep the beat for as long as it needs. Once you master this, we can move you along. But you can't do solos until you know the basics. Thoroughly."

Famke was excited by the idea. Being able, even permitted, to make loud noises in School time appealed to her. Miss Glynnie had said the trick was to make loud noises _musically_. And the hardest lesson of all for a drummer was to learn sublety. It didn't need to be loud _all_ the time. The trick was to understand _when_ you could let rip with all your might. She had illustrated the point by playing a cymbal with wire brushes, creating a soft insistent rippling sound.

"You will learn, Famke." she had said. "And like any other music speciality, this room is available for optional extra study and practice – _supervised_ – outside class time. In the evenings and at weekends, provided you do not neglect your other studies. Interested?"

Famke was. The idea of making music by hitting things with other things – well, where was the downside? And over the following weeks and months, Famke had practiced with what was becoming a single-minded dedication. With the long summer hols looming, she remembered Ruthie had acquired a few drums and things. Her sister wasn't _that_ interested in percussion. She thought it was necessary, but a bit basic. Other people could bash drums, and she, Ruth, would get on with the interesting stuff. Assorted drums were therefore stacked in a corner of her bedroom studio, Famke remembered, and gathering dust. Well, once she got home for the hols, _that_ was going to change...

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Home from time spent helping her mother out at the Zoo, Bekki sat, composed herself, and hopefully lifted the bow. Her sister Ruth, back from school, smiled and nodded encouragement.

Bekki took a deep breath, arranged her fingers on the frets on the double bass, and moved the bow on the strings as she had been shown. There was a sound like a cat being tortured. Her own cat, Smart, pointedly stood up, raised her tail in disgust and possible fellow-feeling, and stalked out of the room, in feline affront.

Ruth winced slightly.

"Try again, Bekki." she said, encouragingly.

Bekki tried again. The sound was _slightly_ better this time. But even Claude the butler grimaced.

"Perhaps madam should stick to playing pizzicato, for now?" he suggested.

Ruth agreed. Her sister was getting _good_ at pizzicato bass, just using her fingers. The two sisters played together, Bekki realising that Ruth was leading the performance, wrapping her keyboard playing around Bekki's bass and making her sister sound good by comparison.

Bekki looked over. Mum had remarked that the living room was suddenly getting full of musical instruments. There was the baby grand piano that had always been there. But Ruth had balanced a celeste keyboard on top, the smallest and lightest member of the piano family. At right angles on either side were a virginal and a harpsichord, with an Acerian Harp on top of the virginal. The Acerian Harp was a sort of steel guitar thing set out like a keyboard. With at least six different sotts of keyboard set out on three sides of a square, Ruth could switch from one to another instantly. She could even play two seperate instruments at once, one with each hand. Mum had shaken her head and remarked that other little girls of the same age might set out a blanket fort in the living room to retreat into. Ruth had created her own fort, her own zone, out of keyboards. Mum and Dad accepted this. Ruth was good at music.

"I got the idea in a dream, daddy." Ruth had said. She had then edscribed to her father a dream of watching musicians on a stage, with flamboyant guitarists and lead singers getting all the attention in the front, while the keyboards player at the back and on the left a bit had his instruments arranged in a square like this so he could keep switching between them as he got on with it. Ruth considered this practical and sensible.

Dad had winced and muttered something about _music with rocks in_.

Ruth had then reminded Bekki about their idea for a bass guitar. She had remarked she'd seen girls play such instruments in other dreams. One who reminded me of you, with red hair, called Suzi, Q-something, sounded like a sort of pizza. It was loud, a bit strident and screamy, but it sounded really good in my dream. And a blonde one with a name like Kristina van der Weymout, the artist. Tina Weymouth, I think she was called. She was good too. **(4)**

Dad had winced again. He'd asked if Ruth had been talking to HEX, or something? Ruth had then said, seriously, that's a good idea, Daddy. HEX would know!

Ruth had then been forbidden from talking to HEX. At least, when Daddy wasn't there.

Bekki had also wondered why learning to play bass properly was suddenly important to her. Being with her sister, definitely, and sharing her music. She'd enjoyed relaxing with Alison and singing and playing with her, yes. But then a memory of Ampie guiding her fingers on the frets emerged... Bekki found herself reddening slightly. She realised she'd quite like some more of that. And soon.

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Johanna stayed late at the School that evening. There was pastoral work to do that she couldn't dodge. Not that she wanted to: she and Heidi were responsible for looking after students from Rimwards Howondaland and informally talking to them now and again concerning their studies and lives in general. This evening they were speaking to half a dozen or so who were approaching their Final Runs and graduation. Johanna and Heidi wanted to get them prepared for leaving school and returning Home, so the talks concerned leaving, returning, plans for future careers, and what they hoped to do to make the most of their National Service. Informally, she and Heidi were also keen to divert them away from BOSS and government service in more dubious areas. That was important too.

"Thank you, miss Neukerk." Johanna said, concluding an interview with a senior girl. "There's a favour I need to ask you. On Octeday, after Kerk. You're invited over to my home, of course. Among other things it's my oldest daughter's birthday, her sixteenth. Good for everybody to relax and do something different. What I want you to do is to keep a close eye on my other daughter. You know how it works: Octeday religious attendence is still School time, and everybody attending is doing so as a School pupil. Famke is therefore a pupil and does not become my daughter again until she walks through my garden gate. Therefore I'd like a responsible senior student to keep an eye on her on the journey from the Kerk to my home, with _no_ unauthorised diversions or excursions. Lead her directly to our home and if necessary, tie her hand and foot, even if it needs six of you to do it. If she complains, advise her you are doing it with _my_ authority, and she is free to complain to me. Thank you. I will be grateful."

Johanna patted the girl on the shoulder. "Look upon it as a practical test of your skills." she advised. "And send the next one in? Thank you. Who _is_ next, Heidi?"

Heidi Smith-Rhodes consulted a list.

"Andrijs duPris, Johanna."

The two teachers shared a look.

"This one will be interesting."

Ampie knocked and entered, trying to hide his nervousness. Johanna rested her chin on her fingers and studied him. She let the silence drag on a little too long, just for effect. Heidi looked on, trying to stifle her amusement.

"You are just over a year from your final Run, mr duPris." Johanna said, eventually. "I understand you do not intend to be a practicing Assassin. That is acceptable. Very few graduates do enter the Active List. Tell me what your intentions are?"

She let the sentence hang there for a few seconds, and added, almost as an afterthought

"After you graduate, I mean. You have National Service to look forward to."

Ampie smiled slightly.

"After basic induction, _mevrou doktor_ , I am hoping to attend the School of Military Music at Trompensberg. Being accepted there will enable me to practice my skills at something I love, and it would make the two years more bearable."

Johanna smiled.

"You will then be a graduate Assassin, Mr duPris. Do you really think the nation will allow you to serve in the military as a mere bandsman?"

She shook her head slightly. Heidi, in advanced pregnancy and uncomfortable in her seat, said

"You never know, Johanna. The Selous Slew doesn't have a military band as such. But from what I know of General Dreyer, he might feel a sudden need to start one."

"Ja, that is true." Johanna agreed. "The Slew still needs people who can make a recognisible noise on a bugle for roll-calls, and for sounding the Last Post and suchlike."

Ampie grimaced slightly. He'd heard of Crowbar Dreyer and the Slew.

He changed the subject and coughed diffidently.

"It cannot be long now, mevrou Smith-Rhodes?" he asked, politely. Heidi smiled.

"A matter of a few weeks, thank you for your concern. Danie is hoping for a son, naturally."

"A healthy child, mevrou. I sincerely hope the birth goes well."

Heidi smiled.

"The Lady Sybil has skilled midwives." she said. "And I'm _sure_ I could find a Lancre-trained witch nearby, as an extra insurance policy."

Both his teachers watched Ampie's reaction. After a whlie, Johanna decided to be kind.

"I'm not _completely_ unaware of what motivates my daughters and what's going on in their lives." she said. "I can't help noticing there's a friendship developing between you and Rebecka."

Ampie swallowed, aware the two women watching his reactions were Bekki's mother and aunt. Both of them his teachers and both of them Assasins with contract completions on their records. Quite a few, in the case of Bekki's mother.

"Ja. Errr... a friendship is there, mevrou doktor. I cannot deny it. If you dissaprove, then..."

Johanna smiled. She shook her head, and decided to be kind.

"Hells, no! I have known and taught you for nearly six years. I find you to be pleasant, thoughtful, well-disposed and a decent young man. Perhaps too pleasant, for an Assassin. It is true there are young men at this school who I would not wish to see taking an interest in my girls. But you are not one of them. I see no concerns. Besides, this is something Ponder and I will have to face and deal with at least three times. Best we get used to it now, I think."

She held out a hand. Ampie took it.

"Young people will make these sort of friendships. It's foolish to try and fight. You are a friend of Rebecka who happens to be male. You do not need to sell yourself to me, not after the last six years. But let me advise you. My husband is anxious. Fathers generally _are_. You will need to sell yourself to him, I think. And let me also advise you that Rebecka has two grandfathers. And both are inclined to be extremely protective. My father saw myself and my two sisters marry, and three young men had to get past him. These days he focuses that protective fatherly side on his grand-daughters."

Johanna let this sink in.

"And my sister-in-law here will very soon have a child. I would warn you that my parents will soon be here. They are flying over so that my mother can make a useful contribution to the life of a new mother and get to know her grand-child."

Johanna smiled the smile of one who knew that this time, her parents would be wishing themselves on her brother and his wife. They'd be staying at Heidi's. She relished the brief spasm of pain on Heidi's face, and turned back to Ampie.

"You now have a challenge, mr duPris. To convince Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes that you're a fit man to walk out with his grand-daughter. I wish you luck. View it as an exercise in charm and diplomacy, perhaps. Now, let us consider your future, after you survive meeting my father. National service. Army bandsmen are also, by accepted practice, medical orderlies and field medics. The best of them have a medical training not far short of a doctor. It would strengthen your case for your preferred posting if your education here focuses on medical skills. Luckily, Matron Igorina teaches selected students some useful procedures. I can ask her to select you."

Johanna smiled.

"I might also ask people I know at home who have influence. To support your career intentions. You never know: you might get that posting yet to the School of Military Music. Or it could be eighteen months doing lively things for Crowbar Dreyer. Or a combination of both. We'll see."

* * *

Meanwhile, in Howondaland, Ruth N'Kweze, also close to having her child, was about to find out about the Naga...

* * *

 **(1)** for non-British or commonwealth readers: "half-time" in a cricket match involves a relaxed English afternoon tea served in the pavilion. The full English afternoon tea is served with sandwiches and cake, and the unspoken expectation is that this is provided by wives and girlfriends of the players. M.C.C. rules **(2)** are explicit on this:

 **(2) _Section 323 (Miscellaneous)_ :** The role of the distaff side in the sport of Crockett is to make and serve sandwiches and light cake and to pour the tea. An acceptable range and full description of suitable sandwiches and sweet cakes is laid out below under 323 (a) (1)and 323 (b) (i) - (xxi) below.

The M.C.C. is the Morpork Crockett Club, the custodian of the Rules and governing body of this great and noble sport of Crockett. Based at Lords' Stadium **(3)** , the spiritual home of the Game.

 **(3)** Lords' Stadium was enabled with a charitable donation from Lord Selachii, a man keen to ensure the Sport of Gentlemen was sustained and perpetuated by having a home of its own. On hearing of his rival's donation, Lord Venturi declared that it was a sterling way of giving the yeomanry and the more promising and less smelly peasants an idea of gentlemanly behaviour, and was therefore to be patronised. He then offered exactly the same donation as Lord Selachii - plus one dollar. Just to make the point. Lords Rust and Eorle also made kind and generous donations. Lords' Stadium is therefore large and well-appointed with magnificent training and teaching facilities. And, because some things are universal whatever the sport, shabby, smelly, changing rooms with under-heated showers.

 **(4)** It also spared the Hall Monitor a confrontation with Famke.

 **(5)** Music Practice and Rehearsal Room 7a weas also known as The Concussion Bunker.

 **(6).** I know. Suzi Quatro. Look her up on You-Tube: in 1973, Suzi Q re-invented the rock band and pointed out there was no reason why a woman could not play bass and be lead singer at the same time. Tina Weymouth played bass for Talking Heads. Both are still going strong a long time later. Incidentally, three out of four founder members of rock band Girlsschool were at one time red-headed, including bassist Enid Williams. And when Ruth discovers Heart and the Wilson Sisters...

 _ **A: A drummer.**_

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where ideas and concepts go to stay fresh in the fridge whilst awaiting the audition call.**_

 _ **Lithophones - stone drums - really exist on Earth. All other musical instruments quoted are also real. Anyone who's seen an Orange Order parade in Northern Ireland or occasionally over here will have seen and heard a lambeg - a massive bass drum, which, by unwitting Rule of Funny, is generally toted by a weedy little guy. i've no idea why this should be so, but...**_

 _ **Percussion teacher Miss Glynnie is a barely-disguised riff on real-world percussion maestro Evelyn Glennie, a woman born profundly deaf who manages to be one of the world's greatest percussionists. She plays music by feeling the vibrations and, well, percussion plus a full orchestra - that's one set of vibrations coming up through her feet and in the air about her.**_


	38. Twee Ruths, Twee Gevegte

_**Strandpiel 38**_

'N verhaal van twee Rutte in gevegte – Two Ruths get into fights

Twee Ruths, twee gevegte

 _ **We're back! Taking an unexpectedly darker turn with warclouds looming – but all to set the scene for Bekki arriving in Howondaland, which will be soon. Continuing the logic of the story from the last episode which is now apparently becoming a mighty saga of interlocked family and friends on two continents, not just about Bekki. Again first imprint, will revise for typos. Lots of ideas, too little time. I have MANY ideas sketched out and roughly plotted. It is just a matter of finding time... too many ideas and scenes, in fact – all in my head and jostling for priority! Keeping the flow going, will be back to revise and add more footnotes. Second imprint taking into account typos noted by readers who are more alert than I am...  
**_

 _ **The Zulu Empire, some way inland from the coast:**_

She had arrived by night, landed from a fast boat that had sailed down the coast, one of many coastal trading vessels that plied the seas around the Gulf of Ghat. Nobody saw the boat pull into the shore and land its passenger, the captain heartily relieved that his supercargo had been offloaded. She had made the sailors nervous, and losing poor Ramesh overboard – he must have lost his footing on the deck, everybody had heard the splash, it was just that, nothing more serious, surely – had unsettled everybody. There had been mutterings about the passenger.

But she had gone now. The job was over. Another crew would collect her at the same point in a few weeks. She wasn't his problem any more...

And the woman made her way inland, moving through the Zulu Empire, seeking her destination. When hunger struck her, she stopped to eat. The local people were hospitable and the food was plentiful. Robed in a blanket in the native style, she had passed for a light-skinned native from a remote part of the Empire where the locals spoke barely any Zulu. This neatly explained any oddnesses. As she was tidy and conscientious, she disposed of the leftovers and scraps in the appropriate way. Then, fed and rested, she thanked her hosts for the courtesy and moved on. The Zulu Empire was a settled and mannered place where people felt a duty of hospitality to travellers; law was enforced, the people were law-abiding, and a lone woman travelling the ways between kraals was not molested or unduly bothered. There had been a moment of incivility with a patrol of soldiers, but it had sorted itself out, as these things do. And while walking on the veldt, she thought of the task ahead. She might not survive. That was irrelevant. The Theocrat had ordered it. It would be done.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons awoke. She was in her bed, yes. But there was no bedroom there. The familiar walls, the ceiling above her, even that part of the house that was above her head, the floor above that had the room where her first nanny Annaliese had lived – it was gone. Her art, her musical instruments, everything. Only her bed remained, on a wide flat roof. She knew the long-disused stable mews, which her parents now used only for storage and the gardener used as an occassional shed, was below her.

Ruth frowned. Mummy had said that the house had been like this when she and Daddy had bought it, and the room where Ruth slept and the rooms and roof above had been built onto the mews later. Something about Ouma Agnetha and an Aunt Friejda who Ruth could barely recall, how they'd insisted on this. A long time before she, Ruth, had been born. It had just been a flat roof then. Mummy had joked that it was just as well, or else Ruth would have been sleeping on that bare roof under the stars – and the rain – with nowhere to keep her art and her music.

"I'd quite like to wake up properly, please." Ruth said, with forced calm. "Back in my bedroom with everything as it is. As I'd like it to be."

She heard a suspicion of a laugh at the edge of her hearing.

 _Oh._ She thought. _It's them again._ She wondered what They wanted this time. Ruth drew her knees up to her chin and watched, cautiously, aware this was probably another of _those_ dreams and even if it was terrifying, as these dreams were, she'd eventually wake up in her bed again, in her room, hopefully not in the pitch-black night. Although unknown to her parents – both would have words to say – she'd got hold of some of the interesting technology the Clacks people used for seeing at night. She'd got it from the house-goblins who ran the Clacks: tubes full of oily chemicals that, when you shook them, activated the contents and radiated light. She was entranced by them, she really wanted to know how the alchemy worked, but she also found a practical application. The ones that radiated something like natural daylight were really handy if she woke up at two in the morning, with a compulsion to sketch. After a dream like this it helped to expel the bad memory. And some of the things she saw in her dreams _demanded_ that they be sketched, before the memory faded.

Ruth watched, relieved it was a warm spring evening and it wasn't raining. The dream could have chosen to be in the depths of winter, after all. She heard commotion and noise in the distance. It sounded as if some sort of fight was happening downstairs in the house. Banging, crashing and screams of pain and rage. Frightened, she wondered what was happening. She heard more noise on the roof and heard something fall and crash. Peopel were arriving in the garden. Lots of people. She heard the clashing of swords and distant muffled voices came to her on the breeze. She thought she heard her mother's voice. It made no sense.

 _I'm the one you want. Why don't you come at me and we'll finish this now..._

There was a shout of hate and rage. Words clashed again. And then Ruth jumped in fear as a body plunged past her and the man rolled in mid-air to cushion his fall as best he could, then laid on the flat roof, seemingly immobile. Then there was another, more controlled, fall. Ruth cried out, unheard, as the woman she recognised as Mummy landed on her feet, swayed as if controlling herself, a spasm of sudden pain and discomfort on her face, then drew her sword again, the edge of silver on a black blade glittering in the night. Mummy wobbled slightly. Ruth cried out to her but was again unheard. Mummy was bigger around the middle. Like Auntie Heidi was big around the middle, big with the new baby Ruth was excited to see. Mummy moved with effort and obvious difficulty. But she approached the prone body cautiously, her sword poised to strike...

Then Ruth screamed as the man leapt to his feet, his own sword suddenly out. Blades clashed again. Ruth forced herself to watch, and realised something new. Both fighters were surrounded by a halo of light. A little part of Ruth's head was saying things like _This is important. Everybody carries their own light. You can paint this, later, when you return to your own time and place._

The man, she realised, was evil. He was surrounded by a halo of black light. Ruth hadn't realised black could be a light too. It was shot through with lightning-flashes of red. She read anger, hate, a desire to destroy. This was a man who had killed people and caused pain for fun. And he hated Mummy. The red lightning-flashes reached out to her and tried to attack her. And she saw where some of the lightning flashes were aimed and she screamed "No!" Again she was unheard.

And Mummy's light was... yellow and orange and red. Like fire. Like flame. But it was cleaner, by a long way. Mummy was angry too. She wanted some sort of revenge. The red said so. Ruth saw something else too. Deep down in there. In mummy's tummy. A second set of lights. Blue and green this time, a clear light blue tinged with green, like leaves on a tree on a sunny day, almost translucent. Mummy's baby. And the way some of Mummy's yellow and orange light enclosed it like a shield, deflecting and fighting the evil man's angry scarlet.

But Mummy was struggling. Something made her nearly double over, as if she was in pain. The evil man laughed. It was nasty to hear.

"The baby kicking, little lady?" he asked, in Vondalaans. "Well, we can soon fix that!"

Then Ruth looked up. She saw the winged white horses in the sky. One, then a second, descended to ground level out of sight. People were on them, who she knew she would recognise if they came close enough. But the third came to the rooftop and landed in _exactly_ the place where Ruth had worked out her easel and art desk would stand. That was interesting.

She watched, in fear and terror and fascination, as two people got off it. One, the pilot, she now recognised as Auntie Irena, the witch who was Bekki's godsmother. Auntie Irena was nice and kind and pleasant. But she looked younger, a lot younger. Ruth called to her as she went to her mount's bridle to steady the Pegasus. Just for a second, Irena frowned and looked over, as if half-seeing somebody. But she then looked to the immediately important thing that was happening and the moment was lost. And Ruth recognised the big man, the _really_ big man, who had been the passenger.

"Oupa!" she called, wanting her grandfather's big strong arms around her. But like every other family member in this sort of dream, he ignored her and treated her as if she was invisible and inaudible. Ruth had had this sort of dream before: being in a glass box, banging on the glass to be let out, screaming at family members that she was there and she wanted them to see her and let her out, _why can't you see me?_ And They had been in those dreams too, watching and sniggering at her fear and pain and hurt.

Then Ruth watched the rest. She realised, suddenly, the sort of things her grandfather was prepared and willing to do, so as to keep his family safe. It wasn't nice to watch. But it reassured her that Oupa Barbarossa was there and that he'd saved Mummy's life. And suddenly, seeing her mother and grandfather so much younger, she realised who the blue and green flame in Mummy's belly actually was. Or _would_ be...

 _~~Ruth Leonora Daquirmia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. We will be back to see you again. For now, draw what you have seen tonight._

And Ruth awoke in her bed in her familiar room with everything as it should be. Her heart hammered. After a while she swung her legs out of bed and her fingers searched, first, for the daylight-tube. Then for pencils and sketch pad.

And she thought _Daquirmia? That isn't my name._

Elsewhere in the house, Bekki Smith-Rhodes awoke suddenly. She'd had a dark dream herself. She couldn't recall the specifics, but it had begun with her wrapped in a warm, blissful, state suspended in a sort of cocoon suffused with faint rosy-pink tinted light. She had been aware of a regular pulsing beat in the background, strong and nurturing. Then the beat had speeded up. And a sense of something being terribly wrong had intruded. It had become louder and more insistent and she had felt panic, fear, and distress. The nurturing cocoon had suddenly become claustrophobic and constricting. Without words, without language, the imperative had arisen – _I must leave this place!_

Then she had awoken.

Her witch-senses twanged. Something was terribly, terribly, wrong. She focused. It centred on... Ruth. My sister. Bekki practically ran on bare feet to her sister's room. Something was attacking Ruth. Well, that Something was going to see a Witch with a reason to get angry... a stray thought arose in her head. If Famke were here their other sister would get angry too. Famke would go utterly insane. She'd go way past eleven if anything were threatening Ruth. The idea made her grin a little. The Tykebomb, with a reason to go off bang. It helped restore normality after an opressive nightmare.

 _Not nightmare. Dad said if you're a magic-user, they're never just dreams..._

Bekki found her sister sitting at her workstation industriously drawing.

"Hei, Ruthie." she said. "Bad dream, baby?"

Ruth looked up.

"Another one." she said, resignedly.

"Ah-huh. Want to tell me about it? That helps."

Bekki focused and tried to sense the psychic atmosphere. She sensed something unwholesome. But it had recognised her. It was withdrawing hurriedly. Maybe, she thought, it had sensed a Witch and the power she had and didn't want a fight. It felt, in a horrible way, familiar from somewhere.

"Hear this." she said. "If you want to hurt my sister. I swear I will find you. And destroy you. You want Ruth, you get through me first. And be thankful our mother doesn't know about this. _Yet_."

A voice only Bekki could hear – she assumed – said

" _We're here too, liewe heksie. We felt something was wrong. We'll keep watch with you."_

Bekki smiled, and thanked the Ancestors. She sensed Johanna Cornelia and Johanna Martia in the room. She had a feeling the ghosts of her family weren't without power in their own space. _Back-up._ She decided to ask them later, not knowing yet how much Ruth was aware of.

Ruth giggled, nervously.

"I saw Mummy in the dream." she said. "And Oupa Barbarossa. They were fighting somebody too. And they beat him. Between them."

"Runs in the family, sweetheart." Bekki said. "People try to attack us. We deal with them. We do whatever works. Family motto."

The spirit of Johanna Martia Smith-Rhodes nodded meaningfully.

Then Bekki looked down and saw exactly what Ruth was drawing. Her blood ran cold.

"Ruth." Bekki said, slowly and deliberately. "You see these Things in your dreams?" She carefully enunciated the capital T.

Ruth nodded.

"They really frighten me in the bad dreams." She said. "But I draw them afterwards. They're still a bit scary on the page. Even if they look really silly when you see them the right way. It helps me feel better afterwards."

"Why not talk to me about it?" Bekki asked. She wished her father was here. But Dad was staying overnight in Pseudopolis at the University there. He'd probably be in no fit state to move much after the classic Wizard dinner. She could talk to him tomorrow, after he came home. He'd asked her. To keep an Eye on Ruth. He'd sensed something was brewing. Wizards weren't completely oblivious to the shape of things; Dad had been watching Ruth for some time and had said to Bekki that she was developing some sort of magical ability, but he wasn't sure _what_.

Bekki wondered if her sister was getting late-onset witchcraft. It was a definite possibility: it was latent in some people and didn't become obvious for a while.

"Listen. When I was about the same age as you. I started seeing these Things in dreams too. But you need to know some things aren't just dreams. They're more _real_ than that..."

They talked together. Ruth finished her sketch as they talked. Then Bekki spent the rest of the night in bed with her sister, hugging her protectively and throwing a silent challenge and a threat out into the psychic ether.

 _Remember. You get through me first. Nanny Ogg and Mistress Tiffany Aching – and you will_ **know** _those names – called me a Defender. And if you want to know if I can Defend – well, bring it on!_

Both fell asleep. Neither was aware, on the material plane, of Johanna Smith-Rhodes, looking in briefly to assure herself that her daughters were safe and protected from more mundane perils. Johanna had sensed something was wrong too. She was a mother and a trained Assassin. A tremor in the pulse of the house, nothing she could put a finger on, had made her get out of bed and reach for weapons. She had silently toured the house, sensing for intrusions or unrest of any sort. Two huge mastiffs had woken and were padding alongside her. Johanna had felt reassured: any mundane intrusion would have been met with jaws and teeth. Ruling out anything non-magical, she'd noted Bekki's being on the case and protecting her sister. _Magic, then. Bekki's dealing with it. I'll talk to her in the morning and then we can talk to Ponder when he comes home._ Johanna had returned to bed and slept.

* * *

After breakfast the next morning, guests arrived unexpectedly. Mum seemd unsurprised. But Bekki was really pleased to see Godsmother Irena. And better, she'd brought Sophie Rawlinson with her. Mum ordered tea and biscuits to be brought for the two visiting witches. As sophie was the youngest and lowest-ranking, she got to do the pouring. Bekki approved of this. It was also good to have her first teacher in Witchcraft visit the house. It meant she could talk about the previous night's events and seek advice.

But first, there was the reason _why_ the two witches were here.

Mum passed over a large carefully wrapped and protected parcel and a bundle of mail.

"You got the other stuff, Irena?" mum asked.

Irena grinned.

"Just, er, _collected_ that in the Shires." Irena said. "Borsetshire, to be exact. Quirebridge. Got Sophie to do the collecting. Good training. It's in a coldbox in the panniers. So we can't hang around too long."

"Ah-huh. I've put the invoice in with the mail. Ruth knows to pay on delivery." Mum said, mysteriously.

"Ruth?" Bekki asked.

"Ruth N'Kweze, _devyuschka_." Irena said. "Next stop is Howondaland."

"Keep it discreet." Mum said. "If enyone esks, Ruth got this through a third party on the bleck market. No racist joke intended."

Bekki must have looked puzzled. Irena and her mother clarified.

"I see." Bekki said. "One of the Devices. And a cargo of, er, _juice_ , from a Best-In-Show winning prize bull from the Shires. The farmer gets a premium for every resultant calf. Mum gets paid for the Device and a percentage on the deal per calf. But because Rimwards Howondaland considers selling technology to the Zulus is an act of treason, it has to be deniable."

"Good for Sophie too." Irena said. "I take her on a few Pegasus Service runs as a passenger. To give her a taster, until Rosie is old enough to take a rider. To introduce her to long-haul flights. I'd have taken you on this one, _devyuschka_ , except that a white-skinned red-haired person called Smith-Rhodes, with Rimwards Howondalandian nationality, is not going to be all that welcome in the Zulu Empire. Something to do with your mother and your aunt, apparently. Blame them."

Johanna smiled slightly.

"Petricien Vetineri considers this sort of thing to be completely ecceptible." she said. "The sharing of non-military technology, to enhence the general state of well-being end international co-operation eround the Disc. Et the right price, with sales tex chergeable to the City."

Johanna then explained the foundation of wealth for a Zulu was based on what could be called the Cattle Standard. The more head of cattle and other livestock a Prince or Princess had, the wealthier and more powerful they were. Therefore the emphasis had been on numbers rather than quality. A lot of Zulu cattle were, frankly, scrubby and runty. Cross-breeding them to the best the Central Continent had to offer would be a massive step up. And Ruth N'Kweze had realised artificial insemination would be a massive benefit to her in terms of both quality and quantity. She was the first Zulu cattle-owner to have seen the possibilities. Johanna was keen to help her old friend in this.

But because the cattle generated the wealth that sustained her military operation and paid for her impi, her command kraal, and her ongoing research and development, the government of Rimwards Howondaland might be inclined to see this as a massive and blatant act of treason on Johanna's part, and BOSS had been looking for something like this for _years_. Hence the need for discretion and a cover story.

"Es it heppens, I believe Ruth when she says she does not want war with our people." Johanna said. "I'd far rather hev people who think like Ruth get power in the Empire. End a civil war, which she is trying to prevent, would break the Empire, create instebility, end ellow people to get into positions of power who _do_ want a war with us. So I see no conflict of interests. Besides, if a big war heppens, our femily are on the Border, right in their line of etteck. So I em heppy to do whet I cen to keep things stable. End Ruth is en old friend to whom I owe favours."

"And I get a few days in Howondaland, doing the work." Sophie said. "Hey, I can borrow a horse. Go for rides on your Veldt!"

"Ensure you have a local guide." Johanna said. "It is easy to get lost, if you do not know the Veldt end the Bush. Ruth will provide you with a guide end en escort. Trust whoever she gives you, end be sure to take their edvice."

"You've learnt from your Uncle Charles, then." Irena said, grinning. Johanna gave her a sharp look, then grinned.

"Ag. I'm just _betting_ some of the crossbows her troops are getting hev hed the serial numbers end the maker's marks filed off." she said. "Sold through intermediaries end agents, of course. Giving – _selling_ \- her something which in this case is not obviously a weapon is completely in the femily tredition."

Then the three Witches discussed the previous night and Ruth, the younger Ruth's, bad dreams. Ruth had gone to school some time previously, seemingly unaffected by her interrupted sleep. Johanna listened attentively.

"Give them Hell, _devyushka._ " Irena said. "It won't hurt for Ponder to check out the magical defences this house has, too. He's back later?"

Later, they waved the Pegasus off and watched it wink out of normal space somewhere in the sky above. Bekki reflected that Irena was dropping Sophie off at Ruth N'Kweze's kraal, then flying over the border to collect her grandparents in order to ferry them back to Ankh-Moprork on the return run. She'd deliver them directly to Auntie Heidi and Uncle Danie, where they'd be staying for a few weeks. Mum was steeling herself and had warned the servants that the Old Madam was back in town. Claude had prudently ordered in several crates of Oupa's favourite local beers, just in case.

Justnow it wasn't Bekki's biggest concern. It would be nice to see Oupa and Ouma again, obviously, but she had a pleasant evening out planned. It would be nice to root herself in normality, with several magical trials looming up to challenge Bekki the Witch. But Bekki, the girl, felt she deserved some me-time.

She then went to sort out the vexing and agonising challenge of What To Wear.

 _ **Café Necros, Peach Pie Street, Ankh-Morpork:**_

In the summer, Café Necros became a pavement café in the Quirmian tradition. Tables and chairs were moved out onto the street. As this was Ankh-Morpork, they needed to be chained to retaining brackets set into the pavement. People would steal _anything_ , even from a venue like Necros with its _unique_ waiting staff.

The broomstick descending into the street turned a few heads. Witches were not unknown in the city. Even so, a girl on a broom executing a careful landing outside the café got appreciative looks and a round of applause, especially from the black-clad student Assassins who used the place as a meeting-point and social venue.

Bekki grinned, adjusted the set of her pointy hat – people needed to _know_ she was a Witch - and she went to join a group of students, who made room for her and politely provided a chair.

"Hei, Ampie." she said to him. "Howzit?"

"A lot more pleasantly and interestingly, now you're here." he replied, with a grin. Bekki smiled and sat next to him. The students were Rimwards Howondalandian. The conversation was in Vondalaans. They accepted her as one of their own.

Bekki relaxed, enjoying herself and appreciating. It was nice to have time for things like this. She accepted coffee from one of the waitresses and wondered if anyone would _dare_ to have coffee and a meal here and then run without paying. Offenders might _become_ a meal. Admittedly the waiting staff all wore the black ribbon. But they could _relapse_ , and then afterwards express guilty atonement at the League of Temperance... this added an extra frisson of danger to the accepted trendy meeting-place for older student Assassins, allowed to go into the City in between finishing schoolwork and curfew at the Guild. It was good for witches to be seen here, too.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

"I see." Ponder Stibbons said. He still felt delicate from the previous night's dinner. Braseneck had constraints and its catering budget was nowhere near as big as Unseen's. Mustrum Ridcully had commiserated weith Dean Henry over this. But the meal had still been far too large for him. "Ruth might be developing magic. And _They're_ taking an interest."

"Bekki fought them off." Johanna said. "Conclusively. And they know it. Which is why, going by what I heard, they didn't hang around when they realised she was aware and prepared to fight for Ruth. And Bekki said she wasn't alone."

" _This is true, Johanna Famke."_ said a voice only Ponder heard. _"We would have done what we can, also."_

"I don't doubt you." Ponder said. Johanna realised he wasn't talking to her. It was still hard to get to grips with, although in unique circumstances Johanna had spent time, time she'd appreciated, speaking to one of them, the one who had been closest to her in her life. She knew they were real.

"Err. Johanna Martia, isn't it?"

" _I am, Professor Stibbons."_ she confirmed. _"Please be assured we will keep watch also."_

"Thank you. So. Where's Bekki?" Ponder asked. He had a sinking feeling he knew exactly where.

"She's out with her boyfriend, Ponder. And don't look so dismayed. He's a perfectly nice young man. I've taught him for nearly six years. I should _know_. And you've met him, remember?"

 _It could have been one of your student wizards._ said Johanna Martia, helpfully. _"From the Department of Necromancy. I'm sorry. Post-Mortem Communications."_

There was the suspicion of a snigger in the psychic ether. Ponder really shuddered. He knew the sort of students who aspired to the skull ring.

" _So there could be worse suitors. Johanna Francesca is considering visiting there. It is her sense of humour. Just to give them something to think about."_

Ponder considered the idea of the deceased Johanna Smith-Rhodeses visiting post-Mortem Communications as a group. Just to, you know, _communicate_. It's what you are for, _ja-nie?_ The idea made him smile quietly. It would make Hix a lot less smug and self-assured.

They discussed what to do about Ruth for a while, Ponder relaying the words of the deceased person in the room to his wife.

Then the message arrived. Johanna called for Shauna, who was spending an evening with Ruth up in her room. Shauna O'Hennigan was pretty much, these days, something of a paid friend and governess to Ruth as her free time allowed. Johanna thought it was good for both of them.

 _You had better go, then_. There was a reflective moment on the part of Johanna Martia. Ponder wondered about this. _We had all better go, I think._

 _ **Café Necros, Peach Pie Street, Ankh-Morpork:**_

"I suppose it is strange, yes." Bekki said. "From your point of view. That I only spend a little time every year in Howondaland, but I speak Vondalaans as well as anybody here. And when I switch languages, my accent is Morporkian. People don't expect that. That's Mum, I think. And the community here. How I was brought up."

"There are a few little oddnesses in the way you speak." Ampie said, thoughtfully. And carefully. "But that's inevitable?"

"It's that _strandpiel_ thing again." Bekki said. "I'm a _strandpiel_ by birth. You all became _strandpiels_ when you all came here, aged eleven. My Aunt Mariella said she didn't realise it at first, but people from Home said she was losing her accent and starting to talk as if she was a Morporkian, after she'd been here a few years."

There were reflective nods and rueful smiles.

"The thing about two cultures meeting. I was born to it. My nanny when I was really tiny, and she was my nanny for a long time, came from Phlaanders. You've heard of Phlaanders? Odd place. Not quite in Sto Kerrig. They speak a language you can understand. But it's strange. And for some reason a lot of people there also speak Quirmian as a first language. Auntie Em... _Madame Emmanuelle_ – says the Quirmian they speak there sounds odd to her. Like the way Phlegmish sounds odd to us. But Annaliese comes from the Phlegmish-speaking half. So straight away I was hearing Vondalaans from my mum and her side of the family, and Phlegmish from my nanny. **(1)** And there are differences. You know how in Vondalaans, if you've had a good dinner, you might say _Ek is vol?_ To say you're full up and you can't eat another thing? Well. In Phlegmish or Kerrigian, it means something different. _Ik is voll_ means _I am pregnant_. Full of baby. You have to be careful."

There was some appreciative laughter.

"And let me explain the thing about cats to you. When I first got my pet cats I was five. I got from Annaliese that you call them to you with _Hier, poese, poese, poese_."

There waas a certain amount of laughter here.

"I see you're ahead of me here. Well, mum heard me and Annaliese. She went sort of thoughtful. Then she said "Annaliese. In Howondaland. We use a _different_ word. For calling our cats. You should use it too, Rebecka. _Hier, katjie, katjie, katjie!"_ Then Mum whispered into Annaliese's ear what it meant in Vondalaans, and Annaliese went bright red. She wouldn't tell _me,_ though. Took me years to figure it out!" **(2)**

Bekki was beginning to enjoy herself. And thern the bright green blur of pixels happened. She wited for it to coalesce into Grindguts the Destroying Demon. The Assassin students also watched him attentively. The green sprite nodded up at Ampie in a meaningful way.

"I'm watching you around our girl, matey." he said. "Just so you _know_."

Bekki sighed.

"What is it, Grindguts?"

"Messages, Bekki, love." the demon said. "Your granny and grand-dad arrived from Howondaland about two hours ago. They went straight to Danie and Heidi's. And your Auntie Heidi got taken with the baby. She's just been took to the Lady Sybil. Said she wants you there. She _insisted_."

Bekki was already standing up and putting the pointy hat on. She grabbed her broomstick. Leisure time was over.

" _Asseblief_ , Ampie." she said. Impulsively, she kissed him on the cheek. "Got to go."

"I understand." he said. "Look, it's starting to get dark out there. At least let me see you to the Lady Sybil."

Bekki heard the unspoken spill words.

"What. You mean, escort me?"

" _Ja_. I'd have at least offered to see you home."

She considered.

"Okay. You can get on the back. I can fly you while you escort me."

They arrived at the Lady ybil a few minutes later. Bekki was aware Ampie was shaking slightly from what amounted to a vertical take-off and a pretty nearly immediately fast descent. The Lady Sybil wasn't that far from Peach Pie Street.

Bekki accosted a medical student and demanded to know the way.

"Ah. From here to Maternity?"

She glowered at him.

"Look. Not hard to work out. You're a witch. And midwifing is something you witches do?"

The student doctor took them there. Bekki wasn't surprised to see her grandmother in the corridor outside a delivery room. They hugged. Then Ouma Agnetha took a long cool look at Ampie, who had tagged along.

"This is the young man I was hearing about?"

"Ja, ouma. He very kindly offered to escort me here."

Ampie blinked. It was like looking at an older version of Doctor Smith-Rhodes, the sort of woman she might become twenty or more years on, with the sort of very white hair which is the final destination for all redheads. He treated her with utmost respect. This seemed safest.

"Ja, mevrou Smith-Rhodes." Ampie said. "I would have offered to escort Rebecka home, as it is getting dark outside and this can be a dangerous city."

Agnetha considered this, and nodded. She smiled slightly and considered for an instant. Then she smiled slightly again.

"Well, since you are here. And you were considerate enough to escort Rebecka here, and I thank you." She nodded towards a door.

"It occurs to me students at your school will wish to know Heidi will be safely delivered of a child." She said. "I understand she is well thought of. You can carry the news, when the event happens. Waiting room is over there, where the men are. Go in. Tell them I sent you. Come with me, Rebecka."

"Good luck, Ampie." Bekki said. Then they went into the delivery room. Ampie heard a voice in pain and discomfort shouting something about Danie Smith-Rhodes being the biggest bliksem to walk the Gods' green Disc. He shrugged, and steeled himself to enter the waiting room. He was Assassin enough to assess for hidden perils first. Then walked in to find out what the hidden perils actually were.

All conversation stopped. Several sets of eyes scrutinised him. Not necessarily in a friendly way. He recognised several faces. He gulped.

"Hey, bro! Howzit?" Danie Smith-Rhodes said. He looked worried. "Dad, this is the boykie I was telling you about. The odd one who prefers to play crockett." Then Danie added, as an afterthought, "Seeing Bekki."

The truly huge man who was standing close to Danie glowered and scowled.

"THIS is the boy?" he demanded. Ampie suddenly felt terrified. Especially since the mild-looking Wizard who was in there too was looking his way. Bekki's father. And grandfather. Both at once.

The giant took a step nearer and glowered down. Ampie mastered himself.

"It is true, menheer Smith-Rhodes." he said. "When Rebecka received the news she was wanted here, I offered to escort her. We met her grandmother. She received me and invited me to wait in here. With you all. Errr."

There was a silence. Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes continued to glare down at him.

"It was becoming dark." Ampie added. "Rather than have her walk here on her own. Errr."

"Be thankful this is a hospital, boy." Barbarossa said. "Not far to travel if you are injured. Convenient, perhaps."

Barbarossa paused to let this sink in. Passing into the quiet place beyond terror, Ampie noted Danie Smith-Rhodes grinning at him. As was the other occupant of the room, the unheeded fourth person. Who was, he had to admit, _distinctive_.

"Now see here, boy." Barbarossa continued. "I may get to like you. All things are possible. But I tell you. So you _know_. My grand-daughters, like my daughters, are gold and silver and diamonds to me. I will not permit disrespect or bad behaviour to them. And Rebecka is a grand-daughter I am especially fond of. I was last here, _in this very room_ , the night her mother brought her into the world. And _maar_ , the things that happened on that night to ensure Rebecka came safely into this world mean she is especially loved. Do you follow me? Are we understood?"

"Yes, sir..."

"Then join us, boy, and we can get to know each other. Danie quite likes you, I believe. But then, Danie quite likes _everybody_."

He nodded dimissal, for the moment.

The fourth person grinned and beckoned Ampie to join her. _Her_ , he noted.

She was in her twenties, dressed in a dark green military uniform, and had what appeared to have at least begun as blonde-red hair. It was streaked with long vivid bands of glowing neon-pink. The sort that needed a skilled hairdresser to maintain. Ampie wondered where the dye came from. No hair in Nature was _that_ colour.

"Wish he'd say _I'm_ an especially loved grand-daughter." she said, conversationally. "Not that I begrudge Bekki."

She held out a hand. "Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande. I was in Raven House, by the way."

Ampie took it.

"I've heard about you." he said, with respect. She preened, modestly.

"Looks like I'll be hearing about _you_." she said. "Let's see. Doesn't play fifteen-a-side, considers that's a sport for people who sit on their brains, prefers crockett. Gifted musician, wants to sit out his national service as a military musician, plays anything made of metal that you can blow down..."

Ampie must have looked surprised.

"Look." the woman said, kindly. "I _do_ talk to Auntie Johanna now and again. She filled me in."

Ampie took in the rank badges of Major. And the medal ribbons. And the dark green uniform.

"Think they'll _let_ you go to the School of Music at Trompensberg?" she asked. "Graduate Assassin?"

"That is what your aunt said." He replied. " _Both_ your aunts, in fact."

Young Johanna smiled. She invited him to consider the patch on her arm. It was a stylised version of a striking eagle swooping on prey. The motto PAMWE CHETE was prominent underneath.

"You'll end up with us, boykie." she said. "Depend on it. If I know the Crowbar, he'll start a regimental band. Especially for you."

Ampie tried not to wince.

"So. What brings a major of the Slew to Ankh-Morpork?" he inquired.

Johanna shrugged.

"See the old school again. Old friends. Stay with Aunt Johanna. Oh, and a job interview. People think I deserve a while out of the front line. I'm in the running for a Military Attaché job at the Embassy. Ambassador wants to see me. So I'm here. On leave."

"Best you are, girl!" Barbarossa boomed. "I'm getting weary of saying this, but don't the young women in my family realise we worry about you? Care about you? And your grandmother thinks it's high time you settled down with a man, but I'm staying out of _that_ one! At least, till you bring him to me, that is."

"Ouma also thinks I hould get the un-natural muck out of my hair." Johanna remarked. She ran a finger down one of the pink streaks. "But you know, this is my image. _The Red Death_ is already taken. I'm gunning for _The Pink Death_. What do you think?"

"I am wondering why you are not, forgive me, with the other women." Ampie said. "Not that I think you _should_ be, but..."

Johanna laughed.

"Me? In there? Watching my uncle's wife squeeze out a child? Blood and screams and squick? Not me. Or maybe, not _those_ sort of blood and screams, anyway!"

"You are not natural, meisie." her grandfather grunted.

"Never claimed to be, oupa. And anyway you've already seen it in two of my aunts, so you cannot say you have not seen it before!"

The following two hours passed by. It was Bekki who came to the waiting room. Danie's head tilted up, expectantly.

"Hope you've got some good names for a son, Uncle Danie." she said, laconically.

"Mattewis..." her uncle said. "Heids likes the sound of that."

 _ **The Kraal of the Lioness, the Zulu Empire:**_

Candidates for the ranks of the Lioness Impi awaited their turn at the recruitment desk. Unheeded among a dozen or so others, the lighter-skinned coloured woman sat, biding her time. The moment to strike would come soon. She was here. Where the mission would be completed, the task set by the Theocrat... she waited. Looking for the woman she was here to kill. The Theocrat had ordered her death.

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 **1** Yup. Discworld's Belgium.

 **2** Still means cat. But in the Donald Trump sense of the word "Pussy". This trips up Dutch and Belgian visitors to South Africa, apparently, who in all innocence might tell their hostess she has a lovely pussy.. Yes, indeed.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where ideas and concepts go to stay fresh in the fridge whilst awaiting the audition call.**_

 **PM to reader Brithund:**

 **Thank you!**

 **All will be revealed about Bekki's graduation piece. Its nature could be deduced from liberal hints elsewhere in the text. I'm looking for a scenario where all three daughters generate major headaches for their parents - literally, in Famke's case - pretty much all at once. Also playing with the idea of Music with Rocks In making a re-appearance on the Disc via an older Ruth and wondering how this will work out without too many people being damaged. Without really intending to, I've now got a keyboards player, a bass player... and a drummer. This sort of emerged with all three sisters settling into the stereotypes of the serious-minded and retiring bass player, the tech-minded slightly nerdy keyboards person - and Keith Moon. All it needs is a guitarist and a lead singer. in other stories I've established HEX as having a quirk for Roundworld rock music - " a computer who can hum like Pink Floyd". Ruth sees HEX as a resource for Roundworld music - a kind of youTube/iTunes. Ruth may well become acquainted with musical sibling sisters on Roundworld - I see HEX stirring things by asking if she would like to hear the music of Ann and Nancy Wilson, perhaps. Oh, and the awful warning which is The Shaggs. Or was.**

 **The problem isn't so much generating ideas to go into this story - it's what to leave out. Or it'll go on for ever. I know where I want it to go: Bekki graduates as a Witch and takes her skills to Howondaland, initially as a guest of Aunt Mariella and Uncle Horst, then moves onto the border country with her grandparents, strays over the border into the Zulu Empire (witches go everywhere if they are needed, and screw politics), where she is detained - well, red-haired, a Smith-Rhodes, and in the Empire. Ruth N'Kweze gets her out of trouble and organises a stay of execution, but this causes an international crisis...**

 **That's the core of the tale. But so many side-directions have emerged, like Bekki's two sisters, who are both interesting characters in their own right and worth developing. Where do Famke and Ruth go... this could be a long one. Don't go too far away for a couple of years...**


	39. In die geveg: staan jou maan!

_**Strandpiel 39**_

 _ **In die geveg – into battle**_

 _ **Work being Somebody Else's Problem for a day or two, another chapter. While the ideas are fresh. In which two people linked by a shared name run into little problems to be overcome. Johanna gets a headache. So does Ponder. Bekki moves towards her informal Graduation as a witch. Young Johanna gets an extended cameo. Still wondering how to get Emma Roydes into the story – she and Young Johanna are inseperable friends, after all. The machinations of Uncle Charles and Uncle Pieter as they try to put a spoke in the wheels of a war machine – Uncle Charles will consider all-out war with the Zulu Empire is bad for business. Uncle Pieter will consider it bad for peace and for his necessarily covert moves towards lowering tensions and fostering some sort of good relations with the neighbours. So they have to make sure the deck is stacked so they can palm the wild card, Crowbar Dreyer.**_

 _ **Music and Art will also be discussed, as well as - eventually - necessary changes at the Guild School.**_

 _ **Fourth version - correcting a goof. Thank you to the eagle-eyed reader who spotted it.  
**_

 _ **Now read on.**_

 _ **The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.**_

Denizulu, iNduna of an Army Corps, a powerful general who commanded six thousand spears, a man whose word over those he commanded was law, looked over to his wife with suitable deference and a great deal of respect. Yes, it had been an arranged marriage. The Paramount King had asked his favoured General if he had appointed a Great Wife yet, to be the moon to his sun. Denizulu, a man who had devoted his life to rising in the military and serving his King, had reluctantly admitted that his life had been a busy one, and thus far there had been little room to court _any_ wives, let alone a Great Wife.

Paramount King Mpandwe had smiled benevolently down from the throne, and said this suited his intentions perfectly. Denizulu would of course recollect he had a daughter called Ruth who was unmarried. Well, Ruth was on her way home from _{{Great Stone Kraal, Reeks Of Incontinent Oxen And Built On An Insanitary Swamp}}_. She needed to be steered towards a suitable husband. As there are no were-leopard traits in your clan, and believe me. I have had this _investigated_ , it pleases me that you should court her. My daughter will also be instructed. If all goes as it should, there will be many cattle as a dowry.

Denizulu had been dismissed, a most trusted General who was being offered one of the greatest favours the Paramount could bestow. One of his own daughters. His head spun with the possibilities. Marriage into the Royal House, the Clan of Ceteshwayo. Any children he had with Princess Ruth would of course be Paramount nobility, princes or princesses through their mother. It was giddying. Even though the Princess Ruth was not at all beautiful. Too tall. Denizulu remembered her mother had been from one of the Hubwards tribes where people ran long and slender, married to the Great King as some political strategy or other, to cement an alliance. Princess Ruth – by all accounts her breasts were too small. Her figure was too mannish. Her hips were too narrow. Her skin was very dark brown, yes. But if ever a woman did not conform to the Zulu ideal of female beauty, it was Princess Ruth N'Kweze. **(1)**

He sighed. If the Paramount had commanded it...

And he had discovered he quite liked her. She was entertaining and interesting. Clever, witty, companiable. And that long lean figure with no buttocks to speak of wasn't _totally_ offensive to the eye. He appreciated her. Ruth, in turn, had indicated she didn't find him instantly repulsive, either. And a marriage based on mutual appreciation and respect and a degree of friendship – but not love – had begun.

He had been called to her kraal for a very special reason. Normally husband and wife, with their different duties, spent a large part of the year apart and each maintained their own kraal. This suited them both, although time spent together was something that both appreciated. Denizulu had been pleasantly surprised. It wasn't exactly something he'd expected in an arranged marriage. And her kraal was different. Those foreign-looking towers? The stone gatehouses? The weird-looking buildings, of clearly foreign design? The way a long stretch of the outer wooden and brush wall was being dismantled and was being progressively replaced with stone, making it look distressingly _permanent_ , white-skinned masons overseeing the work and patiently teaching Zulus to build in stone and mix the stone paste that held the material together? The seemingly never-ending convoys of wagons bringing cargos of fresh stone in from somewhere? Ruth had off-handedly said it had taken a litle searching, but they'd located a useful _quarry_ site not far away, in the hills.

And everywhere. Work. Intent. Purpose. The women soldiers drilling and training. Building. Noise. Machinery. It all seemed both frighteningly foreign and compellingly attractive.

"This is not so much a kraal, husband." Ruth had said. "I want a _city_. The first one in our country."

Denizulu shrugged and tried not to look bemused. His wife's city was growing and sprawling. People did things. Made things. Imported and exported things. She even had people to look after sanitation and export the end-result of several thousand digestive systems. Apparently it went into nearby fields that he had to admit looked greener and lusher than the average subsistence agriculture. **(2)**

Denizulu realised he was married to a woman with a vision. And her small army was a part of that vision. An army needed other people, she had said. For every spear you needed five farmers and artisans behind the person holding that spear. He listened to her ideas. He saw them in action. And he was understanding, as well as he could, what the potential was. Besides, she commanded an impressive force of infantry. And cavalry. And this strange foreign concept called _artillery_.

Denizulu's army corps was camped nearby. Ruth had accepted the need to feed them for a week or two. Arrangements were being made. She understood this. Custom said that his men had to be present, for the Presentation. Arrangements were being made for this also. She hoped it wouldn't be long before the Event, as six thousand extra mouths to feed would stretch her resources.

And, in what was to him an unfamiliar environment, General Denizulu admired his wife's pregnancy bulge. His soon-to-be-born child was the reason he was here, after all. Custom dictated it.

"How long now?" he asked, politely.

Ruth smiled.

"Two weeks, perhaps." she said.

"Then my... _our._.. son is born." he said.

Ruth noted his hasty correction, and overlooked it, graciously. He was relieved. In Zulu society, the expectation was that a wife was subservient and submissive to her husband. Ruth, he had discovered, had firm ideas about this sort of thing. And what complicated things was that a commoner, however exalted, if married to a member of the Paramount House, should be respectful and deferential to _them_. Ruth had suggested the two conditions cancelled each other out and they should treat each other as _equals_. Denizulu had accepted this. He had an uneasy feeling that his wife outclassed him on practically every level you could think of. Watching the way she'd led the army in Muntab had confirmed this for him.

"Come on, Denis." Ruth said, taking his arm. "Let's have something to eat and drink, and we can discuss things."

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

"I see." Johanna Smith-Rhodes said, studying the picture. Gillian Lansbury sat next to her with a stack of portfolios. Gillian looked quietly intent; Johanna considered the sketches she was holding, and breathed out, a long, resigned, mother's sigh.

"This one of Rebecka is really lovely." Johanna said. "I feel es if I should get this in a frame, end on display. But..."

Gillian smiled in a resigned way. This was the wall. The one artists felt they always, inevitably, had to explain, at length, to non-artists, civilians in the Art world.

"If it helps, Johanna." she said. "Ruth says on the day, Bekki said she'd meet her sister halfway. Bekki took her top off and slid her bra straps down so it only _looks_ as if..."

Johanna nodded.

"End the portrait is cropped, for modesty. To just below the shoulders."

"Yes. Bekki insisted on that. It is a beautifully done portrait, isn't it? And Bekki's not showing any more than if she were wearing an off-the-shoulder ballgown in public."

Johanna sighed a deep sigh.

"These self-portraits concern me, Gillian."

Gillian Lansbury sighed again and realised it was time for The Talk.

"Johanna. I know you're concerned. But art is about shape and form. Line and curve. To an artist, a human body is just a selection of interestingly shaped forms and lines and curves. That's why we draw life models. _Any_ human body is of interest to an artist. Clothes are interesting and a challenge, yes, but sooner or later you want to draw the body underneath."

Johanna considered. The top few drawings were in their way unremarkable. Hands, arms, feet, lower legs. All sketched from a perspective suggesting the artist were considering their own limbs. It didn't take a genius to realise they appeared to belong to a young girl of around, say, Ruth's age.

Johanna noticed later ones appeared to have been done as if the artist had found a model, as if they were looking at somebody else from outside. She wondered if they were of one of Ruth's schoolfriends, then realised they were of the same girl. Then she realised.

"Mirrors." Gillian said. "The artist's friend, when you need a life model to draw and you're the only person in the room."

Johanna turned a picture over, and really winced.

Gillian patted her arm.

"Did you think she'd stop at sketching legs and arms?" she said, kindly. "They _do_ attach to a body."

"Nude self-portraits." Johanna said, and winced.

"She's not being exhibitionist or prurient or anything like that." Gillian said. "She's an _artist_ , Johanna. You have to draw bodies. And you can see she's running into the limitations of doing self-portraits from a mirror. You have to keep breaking off and breaking pose, to be able to draw what you're seeing. And while you're doing that, what you're seeing is changing and you're one step behind all the time. The observer changing what's being observed during the act of observation. Ponder might call it quantum art."

"Sounds like you've done this yourself." Johanna observed.

"I have. And until you discover a few little refinements, it can all get a bit blurry. _Scrappy_. Look, I've had a talk with her."

Johanna breathed out.

"Nude drawings. Of my eight year old daughter. Edmittedly, done _by_ my eight year old daughter. But even so..."

Gillian patted Johanna's arm.

"Look, Johanna. I've got students at the School with promise, ones who are _competent._ Maybe even _talented._ I organise life-drawing classes for them. I hire a model in for a couple of hours. I think it might be good for Ruth if she tags on to a couple of my classes. She'll be in a room with senior Guild students, yes, but it should be okay. She'll be learning how to do these things safely, under supervision, and if it turns out in a couple of years you and Ponder choose to send her to the Guild School, she's getting a taster. Good all round, don't you think? And her teachers at Sek's all think she's way ahead of all the others in her year anyway, in just about everything. Mother Superior said to you that this causes _administrative problems?_ A girl who sits in class looking utterly bored and sketching things in her exercise books, the teacher accuses her of paying no attention, then Ruth repeats back everything the teacher's just been saying, and tops it by asking a few difficult questions that not only demonstrate she's understood perfectly, she is in fact way ahead? We've _all_ had pupils like that, and you know it can get tricky!"

Johanna remembered people like Arachne Webber, and winced. Elementary Arachnids, with Arachne in the class, very carefully and diplomatically revealing her knowledge of spiders greatly outstripped that of her teacher...

"Okay." Johanna said, after consideration. "It might be good to introduce her to Manfred, too. Show her the music rooms. Perheps we should go end talk to people together ebout this. But these nude drawings..."

Gillian smiled.

"We're not _completely_ stupid and unworldly people, Johanna. I've explained to Ruth that there's nothing wrong about this. And given her a little Talk. You know. We _all_ know about the Ankh-Morpork Fine Art Appreciation Society."

"Yes." Johanna said, flatly. "The Enkh-Morpork Fine Art Eppreciation Society."

Gillian supressed a shudder. "Although they do prefer _older_ girls. Thankfully. Back in the day when we were penniless students at the Royal Art School, some of us actually posed for them. As life models. My friend Daniellerina thought it was easy money. Posing naked in a room full of fellow artists. Help out, earn a few dollars. She came back fuming and swearing, and saying "never again". And now Danni Pouter is famous, it's emerging that some of them actually did have sharpened pencils and _could_ draw a bit, and those pictures of Danni, nude, are changing hands for big money and being published in some surprising places." **(3)**

Gillian smiled a serene smile.

"Thank the gods I never did. Can you imagine? Nude drawings of me when I was younger, getting into the hands of our pupils, and _circulating_?"

Johanna studied her colleague. Gillian _could_ be described as plainly pretty, in a well-scrubbed homely sort of way. But still...

"So I explained this to Ruth." Gillian said. "That there are people out there who might not see _art_. If these pictures were ever stolen or otherwise got out of her hands. Men who are not nice to know, and who Ruth would not want to have take an interest in her drawings of herself."

Johanna scowled slightly and her hand, possibly unconsciously, went to where a sword-hilt or a whip-handle might be if she were wearing weapons. Gillian noted this.

"I also pointed out her grandmother's currently in town. And if Agnetha Smith-Rhodes were to find out, there would, I think, be a bit of trouble." Gillian smiled slightly. "I got the feeling when you introduced me to your mother, Johanna, that she has a fairly direct approach to life, and she wouldn't see a distinction between _art_ and _indecency_?"

Gillian smiled more broadly as Johanna winced. She continued.

"Ruth got the point of that without needing any elaboration, I think. So it's in hand, Johanna. She's aware of why it might not be a good idea to do this unsupervised. That these pictures have got to be kept safe and stroed securely. Maybe in your safe down here, Johanna? Just to be on the safe side. And this sort of thing needs careful handling and adult supervision."

"Thenk you." Johanna said. She put the awful thought of her mother discovering these pictures out of her mind, or of the consequences of Ruth innocently showing them off to her grandparents, then asked "Where's Ruth now?"

"Reading." Gillian said. I heard about the other problem, from you and Ponder. I found her some art-related stuff to read that she might find interesting. There are some interesting stories in it. And it's good for her to see Art from other cultural perspectives. Not just the local ones."

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons finished the last of her homework prep and methodically tidied it away. People who lived and worked with her or taught her saw the marked physical resemblence to her mother, and therefore were not surprised to see she shared a lot of her mother's physical traits and robustly direct approach to the world around her. _Definitely_ the daughter of Johanna Smith-Rhodes, people said. Can you be surprised?

Famke ticked off the last item on her Homework list. A simple account for her Physical Science teacher on the interplay of forces, inertias, potential and kinetic energy in a simple system with regard to the basic three laws of classical mechanics. Simple and straightforward, except that Famke had not been able to resist adding a few helpful caveats about how according to the Groenefjordianhaven Principle, two bodies once in contact continue to influence each other even though they may never meet again, and how this influences the subsequent motion of those two bodies, in ways with deep implications both for science and Magic. Which just might lead to some wholly surprising and counter-intuitive results concerning the motion of a spherical ball down an inclined plane, especially if Alchemists had made the rolling ball or if Wizards were helping the experiment along a bit.

She grinned. Being around her father, the basic ideas of Quantum had rubbed off on her, and she wasn't above irritating her Physics teacher with the odd piece of carefully judged insubordination.

People who only saw her mother in her tended to forget she was also the daughter of Ponder Stibbons. Famke's written schoolwork was therefore impeccable, well-presented, and well-researched. If a subject really interested her, she could go into it in a lot of detail **.(4)** Doing her homework well also meant she wasn't hassled and could get on with the _really_ interesting stuff, like being able to spend an hour and hopefully more with Miss Glynnie down in Seven-A. They'd got onto things like reading the claves and syncopating the backbeat to land on 4 and 10 in 12/8 time **.(5)** As well as continuing drilling in the forty rudiments, the basic beats of drum-craft and the foundation of all percussion. Miss Glynnie was remorseless here. She insisted Famke should know those forty basic patterns thoroughly, and know to play them _well._ **(5)** Famke was also getting theory lessons in how to _properly_ read music. She was even enjoying this, too.

She smiled, collected her personal drumsticks from the armoire where she stored her permitted and authorised weapons, and left the dorm to descend down to the Concussion Bunker for some practice.

* * *

Elsewhere in the School, Andrijs duPris was finishing his prep work, which included an application form for the attention of Matron Igorina as to why he should be considered for her select class in First Aid, Second Aid, Third to Fifth Aid Inclusive, Field Medicine, and Basic Heroic Surgery. It had taken some thought. Matron Igorina was not, primarily, a School teacher and most of her work was taken up with the necessary medical back-up in a place where people led active and occassionally hazardous lives. But she took some classes and lectures in the course of a week, including an advanced module to senior students on the Black, in which she taught a heavily diluted version of Igoring to people who were not Igors. There were always more applicants than places and Igorina only took those who she considered would be the very best at it. Her selection processes were exacting and rigorous.

Ampie was motivated: he'd accepted Johanna's advice that it would support his application to the School of Military Music if he took intensive courses in field medicine. Bandsmen were also corpsmen, in most Armies. It would, he hoped, get him two years in non-combatant roles and softer postings with more privileges, as well as access to a higher musical training. Armies liked their bands to be made up of the best possible musicians. And crockett was one of the two national sports, in Rimwards Howondaland. Armies liked sportsmen and the prestige they brought to their units, and gave generous leave to practice and play. Win, win, win. With luck, he could ace the grim horror of conscription and do something worthwhile with it.

He had survived his first encounter with Bekki's immediate extended family. Ponder Stibbons, her father, had let his father-in-law lay down the Law as to what standards of behaviour would be expected of any young man who considered himself good enough to court a Smith-Rhodes grand-daughter. In a way, it had been an ice-breaker: Bekki's father had discreetly said "I got it too." And offered a handshake, as well as a sympathetic smile full of fellow-feeling. Ampie could see why Doctor Smith-Rhodes had been so accepting. She had been perfectly happy to stand back and let her own father make the expectations clear. Nothing she could add, either.

Memories of the Night crowded in. The little green demon who had managed to look more threateningly intimidating than a six-inch sprite made out of pixels could possibly manage. Granted, Witches and familiars went together, yes. His first experience of air travel, on the back of a broomstick that had managed a fast, high, parabola across the City, the rooftops shrinking beneath him and then rushing up again with dizzying bowel-clenching speed. Meeting Bekki's grandmother, who had quietly directed him to a room which she knew full well had Bekki's grandfather in it. The little green demon tagging along and saying "hope you're insured."

Meeting Young Johanna, now The Pink Death, a woman who was a Guild legend, a Scary Mary of her time at the School. Although she was OK, he had to admit.

Wondering how he was going to explain breaking curfew and returning very late to the Guild. There were sanctions for this. When invited into the delivery room to view the new Smith-Rhodes child, Doctor Smith-Rhodes had casually said "I'll get you a cab back when we're done here. I've clacksed the Guild to say you'll be late, on my authority. Mr Nivor will understand."

And Bekki. He was now seeing the Witch at work. Apparently she'd laid it down to the Official Midwife that they were going to work _together_ on this one, with no arguing. Bekki had birthed her nephew. All part of the job, to the working Witch.

The child had been Named. Bekki, as presiding Witch, had been given the privilege of suggesting middle names for the boy. She had considered, and gone into deep thought, then said, in a firm voice, "Mattewis Johannes Martius."

This had been accepted, even by her grandmother. Ampie wondered what the reasons were; he had seen Ponder Stibbons blink with surprise, and Bekki had said "We can talk later, dad. As between magic users. Witch to Wizard".

Ampie had seem Mrs Smith-Rhodes – no, she'd said _"In the curcumstances, you can call me Heidi, it's shorter."_ \- look worried, as the other thing was raised. A Witch had assisted at the birthing. That Witch now had a privilege, something of a Duty, to discharge, which was to lay a Blessing on the newborn child. It was, Ampie gathered, something that _worried_ parents. You never knew what a Witch would say in these circumstances.

Bekki had held the new child in her arms and gone into deep contemplation. Everyone was watching. Silently. Then she said, in a firm voice

"Mattewis Johannes Martius van Kruger Smith-Rhodes. You will know _exactly_ who you are and _exactly_ where you came from. That's important as you're a _Strandpiel_ , like me. _Be yourself_. _And know who you are and where you came from._ "

Then she had handed the child back to Heidi.

"It _really_ needs two more Witches." Bekki had said. "You know. Accepted custom."

"I'm _sure_ you can find them." Heidi had said. "Dankie, Rebecka."

"All a bit deep for me." Danie Smith-Rhodes had said.

There had been a celebratory drink. Then Doctor Smith-Rhodes got a cab, and sent Ampie back to the Guild.

Mr Maroon, the porter, had signed him in. He seemed completely aware, and had anxiously asked about the health of Mrs Smith-Rhodes, as Mrs Maroon would also want to know. Ampie had filled him in. The old porter had smiled with relief.

"Glad to hear it, sir. She is one of the more popular Ladies, after all. Well thought of. Oh, and a message from Mr Nivor: he wants to see you in the Viper House office, if you'd be so kind? Nothing to worry about, he understands why you're late."

Ampie had made his way to his Housemaster. He was only slightly surprised that Grune Nivor wasn't alone in the office: he counted Lord Downey, the Guild Master, Dame Joan Sanderson-Reeves, the Deputy Guild Mistress, Lady T'Malia – he wondered how old the seemingly ageless teacher actually _was_ \- Madame Comptesse Lapoignard and other senior Assasins. They all looked at him expectantly.

"I hear you have news from the hospital?" Lord Downey inquired.

"Yes, my lord. I'm heppy to be able to inform you Mrs Smith-Rhodes hed a son. Mother end child are well end healthy. Named Mattewis Johannes Martius van Kruger Smith-Rhodes."

Ampie realised this wasn't nearly enough, as Madame Emmanuelle raised an expectant eyebrow at him. He tried to remember the sort of things women wanted to know in these circumstances.

"It eppears he may develop the femily red hair. Hard to tell on a newborn, but based on pest femily experience, the older ladies were _definite_ ebout this. His birth weight was ten pounds end one ounce."

He saw Madame Emmanuelle wince and close ler legs protectively.

" _Alors._ Poor Heidi." she said. Feelingly. Ampie, who had no idea at all what sort of birth-weight counted as large or small - he'd never had reason to think about this before - remembered Agnetha Smith-Rhodes remarking that the child was big, and likely to grow to the same size as his grandfather. Eventually. Danie had considered this, and said that made his son a good prospect for a prop-forward or perhaps a flanker in the scrum.

Lord Downey smiled a big relieved smile.

"I am pleased. Heidi is well thought of." he said. "You know, in eleven years time, we could well be educating a _male_ Smith-Rhodes. That will be something new!"

"I'll get him pencilled in." Dame Joan said. "For the right year of entry. I'll have words with young Heidi. She knows what's expected. Damn, should go to look in on her tomorrow. Want to tag on, Emmanuelle?"

Ampie had been invited to a celebratory sherry with his teachers, on the grounds that he was the nearest thing to a Smith-Rhodes family member present, and had quite clearly been sent to act on their behalf with regard to some joyous news indeed. Then he was packed off to his dorm. There would be no favours: he still had to be up at seven for the School day. But it had been a different sort of night...

"Well, lad," his Housemaster Mr Nivor had said, reflectively. "Looks like you've been adopted by the Smith-Rhodes family. For _now_ , anyway."

Madame Emmanuelle had smiled and taken his hand.

"Which is not an unalloyed benefit." she had said. "Your life will very surely now have events and interesting incidents in it."

 _ **The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.**_

"Which part of this are you failing to understand?" Ruth N'Kweze said, as reasonably as she could manage. "In a few months I am going to get bigger, fitter, stronger, healthier cattle. Lots of them. This benefits everybody. And yes, it _is_ due to the un-natural intervention of the strange foreign white witches, if you want to see it that way. And no, I do _not_ hold to the belief that they are evil and untrustworthy and have got _**mkhkonyovu**_ **(7)** written all through them."

Ruth glared at the group of gaunt and slightly manic men standing in front of her. Some were distinctly ragged; others wore elaborate over-blankets wrapped round them as robes; all wore ornate head-dresses to advertise their role in Zulu society. She didn't get too close: to a man they seemed to have been devotees of the maxim that neglecting washing and personal grooming brought you nearer to the Gods. Which was not what you wanted in a generally hot country.

"I'll make it _easier_ for you." she said. Flanking and slightly behind her, her husband General Denizulu, in full official regalia, gripped his assegai slightly more tightly and loomed back. Next to him, her indunula Sissi n'Kima rested a hand on the hilt of her sword. Behind _them_ , although not physically present in the room, were eight thousand loyal spears.

"You belong to the College of Witch-Finders. Which swears an oath to serve the Paramount King loyally and faithfully in all things. Which is good, because the Paramount King happens to be my father. I do his will faithfully. Therefore I _am_ the Paramount King in this kraal. You can bloody well, therefore, serve _me_ loyally."

Ruth took a deep breath.

"The white witches brought the means to take cows and make many calves out of them. Call it muti if you like. I call it artificial insemination. That is here to _stay_. They will visit often and frequently, as guests and welcome friends. If you don't like it or if you feel they threaten your role here – tough. They _stay_. Got that? Now get out and go about the jobs you have been assigned. With, I may add, my father's express command!"

They waited while the sullen and resentful Witch-Finders filed out. Unfortunately, the smell lingered. Denizulu, deeply impressed by the way his wife had faced them down – as a Princess of the Paramount _should_ – relaxed and took a deep breath.

"Great Wife, I should now be wary of scorpions or poisonous serpents in the bed's blankets." he said.

Sissi smiled, the smile of a woman who has these things under control.

"We do that _anyway_." she replied.

"I do not doubt you." Denizulu said, politely. He respected the women in Ruth's indaba, too. "I have let it be known, in passing, that any seeking to slay the Princess will first need to slay six thousand warriors in my command too. And to get past _me_."

"Thank you, honoured husband." Ruth said. _Damn, I really do like this man. But he still isn't Julian._ She moved on, fighting down a feeling of guilt.

"Sophie." she said. Sissi nodded. Sophie Rawlinson had arrived to oversee the seeding of selected cows, and to demonstrate to the brighter herders how it was done and what the principles were.

"Not her fault she's got a lot of Alice Venturi about her." Sissi said, referring to the legendary lady explorer. "Or that one over in Urabewe. Lady Jane Greystruck."

Ruth nodded.

"Funny how people fall into _roles_ , isn't it?" she remarked. "Sophie's big and hearty. She promises to grow up into somebody with the same general build and presence as Sybil Ramkin. Her father is the local squire in a village and parish out on the other side of Scrote. Lord of its manor. She went to the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies."

Ruth shook her head.

"Granted, she's not as stupid as a Venturi, and is in fact quite bright. She's a Witch, after all. But it's amazing how when you take a white girl with that sort of background and pop her into the middle of Howondaland – the character emerges. One who shouts loudly at the natives in Morporkian, expects to be obeyed – and generally _is._ Even by Denizulu's warriors."

"You like the young white witch, do you not?" Denizulu asked. Ruth smiled broadly.

"How you understand me." she said, meaning it sincerely. Denizulu had not been the burden she had feared, and he wasn't a bad deal at all as an arranged husband imposed on her for reasons of State. _But still not Julian._ She shook the thought away. "She's good at what she does. She has presence. My women accept her. Especially after she faced down the head Witch-Finder and gave him something to think about."

"Namely, never annoy a Lancre-trained Witch. However young." Sissi said. "And out in the open, where everybody got to see who lost the fight."

"Remind me to advise her to check for scorpions in _her_ bed." Ruth said.

"Already done, Princess. I showed her what to look for." Sissi assured Ruth.

"Would the scorpion _dare_?" Denizulu asked. Ruth smiled at him.

"You're learning. About the white witches. Good. Anyway. I made her an offer. If she doesn't get a place, a what do they call it, a _steading_ , after the Witch Trials, she's welcome to come here and give us a try. I could use somebody like her. Zoya reports she's good with horses, for one thing, she knows basic healings for people, and a reliable magic user I can trust would be useful, as a counter to the Witch-Finders. Win all round."

Sissi agreed. Then reminded Ruth of the next order of business.

"To grace my latest batch of recruits to the Impis with a personal handshake, a few words of welcome, and to memorise a few names and faces." Ruth said. "Okay, let's get cracking. Head-dress? Lion-skin cloak? Any issues or problems among them, Sissi?"

"There's one fron Ghat." Sissi said. "I've got agents checking that her details match. She claims to be a refugee exiled for wanting the Muntabians thrown out, and Ghat to be free again. She wants to learn how to fight so as to go home again later and put it into action. A good reason for signing up, but something doesn't feel right. I've got people watching her."

"Ah-huh. Any routine intelligence I should know about?" Ruth asked, as Sissis helped her into the lionskin robe.

"Reports that people have gone missing from the settlement outside the walls. Just vanished. But that happens for lots of reasons. Lions, usually."

Denizulu frowned.

"I heard other such reports on the march here." he said. "People vanishing. Normally, if it is lions, there are traces. Fragments of clothing. Parts of bodies. Scavenging animals such as hyenas scatter the bones. You see vultures come to the ground to feed. But there were no such signs. It was perplexing. In one civilian kraal, I appointed men to go out and search thoroughly for missing ones. A patrol of six men did not return. We found no traces. Not even weapons. Lions do not consume shields or assegais. And no Zulu warrior surrenders his weapons, anyway. He dies, first."

"That won't do." Ruth said. "We'll have to find out. First duty of the Princess is to her people, and all that."

They left the house together. Armed guards fell in around them, both Lionesses and men from Denizulu's impis.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons sat curled up on the comfy sofa in the living room. Her sister Bekki watched her carefully. Nothing to be concerned about; Ruth was engrossed in an art book with lots of illustrations. Something abut the mystical traditions of the Hubland monks of Enlightenment Country and, most of interest to the author, their long tradition of illustrated scrolls and artwork. Every so often Ruth broke off, picked up a pad and pencils, and industriously scribbled, no doubt copying an interesting illustration or point of technique.

Bekki smiled and returned to her own reading. They were both the daughters of Ponder Stibbons: both had learnt to read early and were voracious readers.

After a while Ruth asked Bekki if she'd like a drink or something. Bekki agreed, and her sister went off to the kitchen, probably to charm Dorothea. It was Claude the butler's evening off; Bekki thought he was probably at the Guild of Butlers or something. Idly she wondered what went on there. Did off-duty butlers have a butler to buttle for them in their own Guildhouse, or did they take turns and buttle for each other? In the meantime, the family actually had to do things like make their own drinks. Bekki shrugged. It did them good to fend for themselves now and again.

* * *

Ruth had picked a time when she knew Dorothea would not be in the kitchen. It made things like this easier. She picked the correct drawer, where she knew Dorothea stored the things she wanted, and helped herself. She consoled her conscience by telling herself that this wasn't really stealing, as she intended to put them back again, and in any case Dorothea had more than one box. She also reminded herself that if Mum or Dad found out she had these things in her bedroom, she would be in trouble. They had better not find out, then, Ruth resolved.

She also poured two glasses of a soft drink for herself and Bekki. Just to justify her visit. Then she returned to the living room. After a while she settled down to reading the more interesting chapters in the book Gillian had got her from the library at the Assassins' Guild.

She re-read the text that went with the pictures of the statues to be found in the gardens of the Monastery of Time in Qi Dong. They were apprently depictions of the various sorts of terrible demonic entities that lurked on the other side of bad dreams. Some History Monks had evolved strategies for combating them, which the author of the book had considered incidental detail to the art. But Ruth had the sort of mind that grasped concepts easily.

People looked at Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, saw the way she physically took after her father, took in the hair so dark brown it was almost black, saw the sort of face that looked as if it _ought_ to be wearing glasses, and the studious, serious, intellectual streak. It was perfectly bloody obvious to outsiders who her father was, and knowing this didn't surprise them. But they never stopped to consider who Ruth's mother was. And deep down inside, Ruth was her mother's daughter too.

 _ **The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.**_

Sophie Rawlinson had been a guest at the Zulu kraal for several days. Irena had dropped her off and had introduced her to Princess Ruth. The Princess had accompanied her on the first round of Doing What Was Necessary, had watched carefully, and had asked shrewd questions. Doing What Was Necessary had all been wrapped up by the evening of the first day, anyway. Irena had said there was no great rush in bringing her back, and she might as well stay on and broaden her experience. Sophie had wondered, for an instant, as if something had been discussed on a previous visit; Irena and Ruth appeared to be old friends.

Sophie had decided to give it a go – there were definitely horses here, she could see and smell and hear them – and this looked like amazing riding country.

Ruth N'Kweze had made a guest bedroom available in her own home; Sophie had been pleasantly surprised by this, assuming she'd be allocated a blanket and a bedroll on the floor of a mud hut somewhere. And in private, she had been able to call the Princess, simply, Ruth.

Sophie realised she was quite enjoying it here.

There'd been the business with the native magic users, who didn't seem to like the idea of women having magic, and still less white women who were tainted by their skin colour. Sophie gathered the white-skinned race in the country next door weren't exactly popular, and anybody who looked even slightly Rimwards Howondalandian was immediately suspect. She decided it might be best not to mention she knew the Smith-Rhodes family. Just in case.

She hadn't bothered with magic when the native wizard had threatened her. _Lots_ of the women soldiers who were loyal to Princess Ruth had gathered to watch the fight and to see what the white witch would do when threatened by a Witch-Finder, an absurd smelly little man who had capered around pointing some sort of dratted magic wand at her, some sort of bone with a feather on the end. Sophie was witch enough to taste the octarine in the air and knew this had to be sorted out quickly. And deep-down witch senses were screaming at her that once a Witch got into a magical fight with a Wizard, it went on forever and expended a large amount of time and magic without really solving anything.

Sophie had scowled, sensing the magic building in his wand, and hadn't bothered with any magic of her own. She'd impatiently slapped the pointing bone out of his hand, hitting the capering little twerp hard on the back of the hand holding the wand, and it had clattered to the ground, inert without the power of the man using it.

Then she'd grabbed hin by the shoulders, hoisted him up, shook him, and spoken to him _jolly sternly_.

"Look _here_ , you silly grubby little man! If you _dare_ try to use magic on me, you will get it thrown right back at you, do you hear me? Am I getting through? now don't be so bloody _silly_! "

Sophie, a naturally large girl with muscles honed by long periods spent working with horses, had thrown him to one side and walked on, through a circle of appreciative and grinning women warriors. She resolved to keep an eye on the native wizards after this; but sensed she'd made a lot of friends. That was reassuring.

Princess Ruth hadn't directly referred to the incident. But her personal assistant Sissi, the one who'd also been to the Assassins' School, although you wouldn't think it to look at her, had found a length of white cloth and suggested Sophie needed a neckscarf of some sort. She had wound this around Sophie's black pointy hat, leaving a long length dangling behind that could be used to keep the Howondalandian sun off. Sophie thought it looked quite fetching.

" _Very_ Lady Alice Venturi. " Sissi had said, mysteriously. "Suits you."

Sophie had spent joyous days riding with a detail of Ruth's cavalry warriors, mainly wiry little women who tended to ride bareback. She had got to know them and they had learnt to appreciate each other's riding skills. And she'd made friends with one of the cavalry officers, who _did_ know about saddles and stirrups and more familiar tack. Ruth's heavy cavalry had needed to be taught this from the ground up, apparently, especially to learn the lesson that if you intended to use a lance from the saddle, _you needed stirrups_. Or the shock of impact bowled you right off and on your arse in the dust.

Zoya Zlatanavichnya was a Cossack; she'd been recruited to train cavalry for Ruth in the Central Continent style, and held _indunula_ rank in her cavalry. She had commanded the escort detailed to look after Sophie in the local countryside, and was jolly good fun to ride with. In return for the hospitality, Sophie had demonstrated her skills at managing horses and treating equine ailments. Zoya had been pleased.

The day they'd ridden round a grasskop hill and straight into _thousands_ of black-skinned Zulu warriors, large men with spears, had been a distinct moment of brown-jodphur'd worry. But everything had been relaxed, and Zoya had said not to be concerned, they're on our side. Sophie had ridden down the front of the sudden army, that she could _swear_ had not been there a moment before, and reflected that she'd never seen so many armed men in one place all at once. It was a far cry and several thousands of miles away from the amiable Shawn Ogg and the other part-time guards at Lancre Castle. Sophie reflected that it was a jolly good thing these chaps were inclined to treat them with friendly respect, as there seemed to be a _lot_ of them all of a sudden.

She recalled things Bekki had said. About her mother's people, and the tales of being on the defending end against an army like this. _No wonder the White Howondalandians get worried_ , she thought.

She heard the women riders around her chant a greeting in Zulu. Then there was a pause and six thousand voices replied with their own identifying chant, with much foot-stamping and beating of spears against shields. It was scary. It was stirring, Sophie admitted. But above all, it was _loud._

"Just saying hello." Zoya said, as the two groups parted ways. "You know, not many white people get to see and hear that, and live. We are privileged, _babuischka_! Is good, da?"

And now, today, she and Zoya were in the crowd watching as the Princess, heavily pregnant but moving with tall dignity, made some sort of ceremonial procession with her husband, the scary-looking big General who _commanded_ those six thousand men out there. Ruth called him Dennis, Sophie reflected. It sounded vaguely absurd, but she meant it in genuine affection. Probably some private joke; the Princess had lived the larger part of her adult life in Ankh-Morpork and missed the place badly.

They were closely escorted by male and female soldiers, and the ubiquitous Sissi, a trained Assassin, was never far from her employer's side, a Filigree Street-trained bodyguard. Sophie wondered how long an assassin, not necessarily with a small-case A, would last. Then Second Thoughts kicked in and she wondered how many assassination attempts there had _already_ been.

Sophie realised the purpose of the day was for the Princess to welcome and greet the latest batch of recruits to be admitted to her regiments. Zoya said she was hoping for one or two who could ride and hoped they'd brought their own horses. And there they were, fifteen or so scared but proud looking women who were about to meet their commander, be sworn in, and then later to be allocated to their NCO's.

Sophie looked them over. Mainly Zulu, as far as she could tell, but one or two of them were lighter-skinned and looked different. Apparently the Empire encompassed a lot of allied and subject peoples and Ruth even accepted mercenaries and soldiers of fortune from all over, provided they were reliable, loyal, and prepared to keep up with the march and learn to speak Zulu. Sophie's eyes were drawn to one, lighter-skinned, who looked different. Something _odd_ about her, something out of place, something that didn't fit... Sophie looked again with a Witch's eye. And she realised.

"Princess Ruth!" she screamed. "Alarm!"

Then she was running forward as It happened...

* * *

Ruth made the formal speech of welcome to her new recruits and was beginning the process of greeting each by name, welcoming them to the ranks of the Lionesses, assuring them the training would be hard but not impossible, that you are now a sister in a very big family, and if you have special skills we will try to steer you to where they will be of most use to all...

She heard the scream of warning from the distance and frowned. Sissi appeared to be reacting to something...

And then there was more screaming as _something_ surged up from where the Ghatian recruit had been standing. It was huge, coiled and hissed. Ruth looked up into the cowled and hooded head of a very large cobra. Only this had human arms and a woman's face above the fangs...

 _Damn,_ Ruth thought. _I've only got this absurd little ceremonial assegai with a head that can barely cut butter. Ceremonial, with the silver ornamentation... tradition says the Crown Princess carries it on formal occassions..._

She dodged to one side as best she could as the cobra-woman struck. Suddenly her guards were leaping in, female and male, striking with their assegais, with little apparent effect. Ruth looked on, feeling a surge of horror as the huge cobra head snapped down and bit a warrior, one of Ruth's personal guard, cleanly in two. Blood and debris sprayed. More guards were leaping in between Ruth and the thing, shielding her with their bodies. Ruth felt as if she were rooted to the ground, and tried to think like an Assassin...

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons meticuluously arranged the mirrors as Gillian Lansbury had taught her. Mirrors angled together _just so_ would capture her left and right profiles and would reflect them into the big mirror in front of her. So that she could see and draw her own profile or three-quarter view as she chose, views of herself that people didn't normally get to see.

This intrigued her. She'd also discovered that if you angled several mirrors so they reflected into each other, you got reflections of reflections of reflections. This made her go "wow". She wondered about trying to capture the multiple reflections and mirror-Ruths on paper. Then she frowned. She'd had a fleeting impression that one of the mirror Ruths, right on the very cusp of vision, was leaping up and down, trying to draw her attention, trying to warn her of something... her spine tingled. _Something was wrong..._

Ruth found herself, her sketch pad, her pencils, whirling, as reality altered. Suddenly she was sitting on cold black sand, looking up into a black sky with no stars, lit by dark light that seemed to come fom nowhere.

And she knew she wasn't dreaming.

She paused; Bekki had told her something like this had happened to her, too.

Then Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons stuck her jaw out.

"I'm ready." she said. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

Downstairs in the living room, Bekki Smith-Rhodes was in conversation with her father and her cousin, Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande, over a late evening drink. Young Johanna was staying here for a few days because she had a job interview coming up. Bekki liked her and they enjoyed each other's company. Bekki also wanted to find out more about the convention-defying pink hair. It looked cool.

Then there was a change, a shift, in the psychic current.

"Dad." Bekki said. "Something's wrong."

Her father frowned.

"I feel it too." he said.

Young Johanna looked politely puzzled. She had no psychic ability. But she respected people who did, and if they both ageed something was wrong and felt it at the same time...

"It's Ruth." Bekki said. "It's happening to Ruth."

She led the rush upstairs; Ruth had been sent to bed at the usual time, some time ago. But she wasn't in bed. She had vanished.

"Dad..." said Bekki, indicating the mirrors.

"Oh, _hell_." Ponder Stibbons said, feelingly.

With the very best of intentions, Gillian Lansbury, who had no magical training, had brought about a situation where a girl with some latent magical skill had been caught between two mirrors. Which all schools of magic, Wizardly or Witch, stressed was not a good place to be. At all. eEpecially when the person caught between the mirrors had magical ability but, Ponder realised with horror, little or no awareness of the dangers or how to use it.

"She's trapped between mirrors. Elsewhere." Ponder tried to explain to Young Johanna. "Somewhere in the multiple reflections. Alternative realities. Parellel worlds. I'll have to get HEX on the case."

"Or else she's opened a Doorway." Bekki said. "Without intending to. And I have a _very_ good idea which world that doorway opened into."

 _ **To be continued – two Ruths, two battles. Took a lot longer than I intended to get here – got to leave you on a cliffhanger, but hopefully not for too long...**_

* * *

 **(1)** The same physical qualities had made Ruth a knock-out in Ankh-Morpork. Julian Smith-Rhodes had gone "wow…" the very first time he saw her, for instance.

 **(2)** Ruth had proudly shown the agricultural side off to her husband. She did admit it could get a bit _smelly_ , but explained she'd learnt a lot from observing a man called Harry King. After explaining that it vastly enhanced the crop yield and greatly improved the soil, she quoted Harry King to her husband: "Denis, there's some lovely filith down here!" **  
**

 **(3)** I recall Tracey Emin ran into this problem after she became a world-famous artist… it wasn't so much the nude sketches emerging, as the fact she personally wasn't earning a penny from them.

 **(4)** More than it strictly needed for basic first-year work, most of her teachers agreed. "I'm **sure** she's only doing it to annoy." said Mr Duggan, the Physics master. "And she knows we can't pull her up for insolence, as all she's doing is her homework. And damned well, too. One day I'm going to ask her father if all this stuff about Quantum actually _means_ anything, or if she's just making it all up, to make me look dumb." Johanna had patted him on the arm. Having the limits of your understanding shown up by one of your pupils was not pleasant. She sighed. Being Famke's mother meant she had to do this a lot to her daughter's teachers, with whom she shared a staffroom. Except, Johanna reflected, Ethelyne Glynnie, who really liked her. And who reported no issues and said Famke was an absolute _delight_ to teach, much to the scepticism of her staffroom colleagues.

"I'll mention it to Ponder." she had said. "But if she gets it from her father, it'll be _right._ Do you want me to show him some of this stuff?"

 **(5)** Lifted from a teaching document from the Royal Northern College of Music. Like Sheldon Cooper's background equations on the whiteboard, I have no idea what it means but it just looks good.

 **(6** ) Yup. Parradiddles and ruffs and triplets and all the rest. Famke was absorbing their names and patterns almost daily. There are apparently thirteen absolutely basic Rudiments and forty extended ones in the drumming manual. Miss Glynnie insisted Famke should know them _all_ by name and be able to play them, faultlessly, on demand.

 **(7)** Revisit the end-notes for Chapter Fourteen here. I _**knew**_ this word would come in useful.

* * *

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where all those simmering ideas go, like the ingredients of a good stew, to simmer until the moment comes to serve them into bowls with the equivalent of good chunky fresh bread and red cabbage.**_

Discovered on YouTube a South African blogger called Katinka Oosthuizen, whose blog seeks to explain South Africa and Afrikaaner life, as she sees it, to mere _uitlaanders._ Late teens, yes, but advance her face and attitude by a decade and a bit – and this is Heidi van Kruger/Heidi Smith-Rhodes as I see her. Her education in South African slang is pretty good, too!

Reading the history of the First Boer War in 1880-81. Struck by the fact the British lost _ **every**_ field battle. But the Boers were utterly unable to capture fortified towns held by the British. A dress rehearsal for 1900? The Battle of Majuba Hill… in which the British Army was forced into rout and lost 50% of its strength killed or captured, including its commanding General. At Majuba, the Boers' field commander General Joubert was apparently goaded into battle by his wife Hendrina, who had ridden into battle at his side, never left him, and by all accounts did her share of the fighting. Damn, was her maiden name Smith-Rhodes?

If I get round to writing a "history" of the War of Independence/The Boor War, for simplicity and narrative's sake I'll conflate the two Boer Wars of our world into one; the role of Henrina Joubert is begging to be played by a Johanna Smith-Rhodes, for one thing.

Also discovered the Boers had a Generaal Smit. Or "Smith". Halfway to being a Smith-Rhodes...

One guest review to **_"Discworld Tarot_** " that simply said "See Ya!" What the heck's _that_ about? And I can't reply to it. Ah well…


	40. Bloed op die Sand

_**Strandpiel 40**_

 _ **bloed op die sand – blood on the sand**_

 _ **Work being Somebody Else's Problem for a day or two, another chapter. While the ideas are fresh. In which two people linked by a shared name run into little problems to be overcome. Johanna gets a headache. So does Ponder. Bekki moves towards her informal Graduation as a witch. Young Johanna gets an extended cameo. Still wondering how to get Emma Roydes into the story – she and Young Johanna are inseperable friends, after all. The machinations of Uncle Charles and Uncle Pieter as they try to put a spoke in the wheels of a war machine – Uncle Charles will consider all-out war with the Zulu Empire is bad for business. Uncle Pieter will consider it bad for peace and for his necessarily covert moves towards lowering tensions and fostering some sort of good relations with the neighbours. So they have to make sure the deck is stacked so they can palm the wild card, Crowbar Dreyer. As before – version one, and a long one this time including extensive end-note.**_

 _ **Music and Art will also be discussed, as well as necessary changes at the Guild School.**_

 _ **Now read on.**_

 _ **A restaurant, Ankh-Morpork (fill in the details later)**_

A group of female teachers from the AGS had got together for a social night. It was partly old friends meeting up; but also a working meal where Things Were Being Discussed. In the main, they were housemistresses and former residential housemistresses. Changes were being planned. The intention was to go to Lady T'Malia, who decided these things, and present her with a well-thought out considered proposal as to who took over Raven House after Miss Gillian Lansbury became Mrs Gillian Stitched. Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who had been the first Residential Housemistress in Raven, was there to make her own input into the process.

"Heidi's got a nanny, then?" Miss Alice Band inquired. "So she'll be back at School at the start of the autumn term?"

Johanna smiled and nodded, in a quietly triumphant way. Learning from her own experience, she had strongly reccommended Heidi get somebody in place _before_ her mother-in-law turned up to take over and make the decision for her. So as to present Agnetha Smith-Rhodes with a done decision. A useful girl from Sto Kerrig had been employed.

They discussed the baby for a while, as good manners dictated, then moved to the other thing. It was the one they were here to decide.

"So it's official, then?" Alice (Tump House) asked.

"You guys finally got it together, huh?" said Antoinette de Badin-Boucher. (Black Widow House). "Hey, only took you ten years. Talk about a slow courtship!"

Gillian Lansbury (Raven House) smiled a big relieved smile and showed off the engagement ring. As good manners dictated, it was examined, approved of, and envied.

"A big down-on-one-knee proposal, was it?" Alice asked, knowing full well the answer would be other.

Gillian's smile faltered slightly.

"Well. His _actual_ words were "Look, old thing, I've known you for a few years now. How about it?" Then he got the ring out."

Madame Emmanuelle de Lapoignard nodded, reflectively.

" _Eh bien_." she said. "From a Morporkian man, that is as near to a profession of undying eternal love as you can expect. And from a man such as Tobias Stitched it is positively emotionally incontinent. His parents had words with him, _sans doute_?"

Gillian sighed. Toby's parents had indeed had a few words. Along the lines of "Long courtship. Quick engagement. _Quicker marriage_. There are some decent places to be had around Nap Hill. Spa Lane's nice. Lots of Gillian's colleagues live there. We rather suspect she has a few dollars banked from her job, but if you're short we're willing to help out. _To get you both set up in married life_."

Johanna took her colleague's hand sympathetically.

"It will be nice to hev you es a neighbour." she said. "But the fect remains, if you will be merrying Toby this summer end moving out, Raven House will require a new Housemistress."

Gillian nodded.

"Which is why we're here. Johanna, you were the first Housemistress. When Raven was new. You made the place. I took over something that you created."

"And you did bleddy well et it, too. But it is coming to en end, so we need to get you a sucessor. There are still seven weeks to the end of summer term. I would suggest thet so es to give you time free to deal with the complexities of your coming marriage, we select your successor end begin to get her trained. We cen ell help out there. We all heve experience of managing houses."

All eyes turned to the sixth person at the table. She had been silent so far, but had been intently watching the five other women at the table around her, with particular attention paid to the movement of their lips. Until you divined the reason _why_ Ethylene Glynnie was watching your face so intentily, it could get unnerving, especially when the woman doing the slightly frowning intent staring was in Assassin black.

Johanna smiled.

"Of course, Gillian, we all know the _real_ reason why you're getting merried end resigning the residential post in such a hurry." she remarked. "It is to evoid being responsible for my daughter Famke for enother six years. I eppreciate one year of Famke is enough for _enybody_."

There was general knowing laughter and relief that _Johanna_ had said it. Miss Ethylene Glynnie was slowest to get the joke. She had particular, unique, problems with Johanna's Howondalandian accent. Johanna understood this and tried to articulate words around her in as near as she could get to Received Morporkian, taking care to enunciate clearly and with obvious lip movements.

"Well, buddy, you get her for _life_." Antoinette remarked. "Kinda comes with the turf for a mother, huh? Like a life sentence?"

Antoinette de Badin-Boucher had to try to teach Famke Quirmian. It was another mandatory proficiency for a young Assassin: Quirmian was the language of culture, diplomacy, the arts **(1)** , music **(2)** and fine cuisine **(3)**. Of course an Assassin should be fluent in Quirmian. As some anxious parents pointed out, Antoinette de Badin-Boucher was from Quirmian Aceria and had a somewhat _colonial_ accent. The School pointed out that good Quirmian teachers did not grow on trees, even in Aceria, ehhh, that had an abundance of trees despite the sterling efforts of the lumberjacking trade **(4)**. Besides, we also employ Quirmian teachers and teaching assistans from Quirmian Phlaanders **(5)** and Genua, areas of the Disc where Quirmian is spoken as a living language and which is, unavoidably, _divergent_ from that of metropolitan Quirm.

Antoinette had inherited Black Widow House from Madame Emmanuelle some years before, keeping the tradition of a Quirmian-speaking housemistress going. Emmanuelle had been entranced and amused with the Acerian version of her language, and had adopted the girl who was then her pupil as an informal protègée. Her graduate, after a suitable period in the world, had then returned to the Guild School as a teaching assistant and eventually Housemistress.

Johanna considered this.

" _Ja,_ but I get periods of parole for good behaviour." she said. "Otherwise known as school terms."

There was more appreciative laughter, tinged with sympathy and the suspicion of shudders.

Miss Ethylene Glynnie frowned.

"I appreciate other members of staff might find Famke to be hard work."she said. "She is a strong-minded young lady, after all. But I've never found her to be anything other than enthusiastic to learn, she's well-behaved, accepts the disciplines of my lessons, and she is an absolute delight to teach. I've never had the slightest trouble with her and I do have to admit I'm getting quite fond of her."

"Well, yes." Gillian Lansbury said. "It does help that in your lessons she actively _wants_ to learn and she's therefore committed to learning. She likes you, too. That helps."

Miss Glynnie smiled, serenely.

"As she'll be in Ankh-Morpork over the summer, I hope she doesn't neglect her music lessons." she said. "I rather hope to be able to continue giving her private tuition."

She looked at Johanna, who shuddered slightly.

"Music lessons. While she is et home. Ja. I hev this in hend. To save my family, my neighbours, end ebove all _myself_ , a lot of _headaches_. I hev engaged Mister Thorskjovellsson, who has done a lot of bespoke building work et the Zoo, to do a little job for me. It will cost a lot of dollars. But the way I see it, you only get _one_ set of ear-drums."

People looked sympathetically at Johanna.

"Drums. Yes indeed." said Miss Alice Band.

Miss Glynnie looked excited.

Johanna smiled at her.

"Come over for dinner, Evvie." she said. "You cen perheps offer professional guidance. End you may like to meet Ruth, my other daughter with en interest in music."

"I understand Rebecka is also developing an interest in music, _chère amie_?" Emmanuelle offered, with an innocent half-smile. "Since she met a pleasant young man who is a musician?"

Johanna winced again.

 _"Ja."_ she said. "To be fair, Bekki is growing more capable in bass instruments. In every respect except using the bow. But even thet is getting less excruciating to the ear. If she plays with her fingers alone..."

"Pizzicato." Ethylene Glynnie said, helpfully.

 _"Ja_. I do find a drink helps. For _me_ , thet is, not for Rebecka. A place for two out of three of my daughters to prectice music es they wish is now pressing. End a young man, in this city for the summer, will visit, who plays bress instruments. I suspect he will wish to play music with my daughters. Hence my employing a good Dwarf builder who knows whet is needed. It will be in place by the end of the summer term when Famke returns home. "

Emmanuelle, an immediate neighbour of Johanna's, expressed full support and said if there was anything she could do, _chère amie_?

"Raven House." Alice prompted them, after a brief thoughtful silence.

"I suggest Evvie covers a few residential nights for Gillian." Johanna said. "To get experience. To get to know the girls end the _menegement chellenges_ they present."

"Which of them are absolute bloody horrors who'll push and push and break the rules. If they think they can get away with it." Alice said.

Gillian smiled.

"To weed out the ones who will inevitably get _over-confident_ and think having a Housemistress who is deaf is a gift from the Gods and that they can get away with murder."

Miss Ethylene Glynnie smiled and closed her eyes. She concentrated for a moment and laid her hands flat on the table.

"I believe a diner at the other side of this restaurant has just laid her knife and fork flat on the table." she said. "She is sitting at a table twenty feet away with a man who is perhaps her husband. Or may not be. I sense an embarrassed silence between them. This comes to me as awkward shifts and un-easy movement and vibration in the air. She is wearing ill-fitting new shoes with heels. I feel them scraping on the tiled floor in a manner suggesting physical discomfort. She is also wearing a new corset or some sort of underpinning garment which is also new and laced up too tightly. Also a source of discomfort. I get the squeak of the stays. And in the other direction there is a waiter rebalancing a tray of glasses on his arm. I can sense the shifting of liquid-filled glasses on the tray.."

The other teachers, who could see what Miss Glynnie was describing, grinned appreciatively. Just because somebody was deaf, in the accepted sense, didn't mean they were _unaware_. Miss Glynnie made what she called the sixth sense, of intuitive feeling of position, vibration and movement, into an Assassin art-form all of her own. She had taken advantage of the lazy perception that deaf people were _handicapped_ and capitalised on it, in some unique ways of interest to the Guild.

The girls of Raven House were yet to fully realise this. It would be an unpleasant shock to some of them.

Johanna, asking for the bill later, remarked pleasantly that it would be good to get home. Maybe put an hour or so in, on the paper she was writing for the _Scientifick Pseudopolitan_. You know, just to make a point to Ponder. **(6)** The girls know their bedtimes, and anyway Claude might be back from his evening at the Guild of Butlers to drop a few hints. It should be a quiet night at home.

Johanna was about to realise how wrong she could be.

 _ **Spa Lane. Ankh-Morpork:**_

Bekki hastily laid the mirrors flat and face-down in her sister's room. She had tried not to look into the multiple reflections, even though deep-down temptations had dragged at her witch senses like a whirlpool. Young Johanna nudged her, as Ponder Stibbons shouted at them to run down to his study. _Quickly._

Bekki reflected if Dad was moved to shout, it was important... she turned to look at her cousin.

"Get your weapons." Johanna said. "You know how to use them. And where we're going, we'll _need_ them."

Bekki reflected that her cousin had worked it out, quickly. She looked into the disconcertingly intent face framed by the incongruous pink hair. It was a face that promised trouble for somebody out there, like a somebody or somebodies who had just abducted a child.

"Always assuming my sword is still there, after what happened to it _last_ time." Johanna said, meaningfully.

"Well, yes, but this is magic..." Bekki said. Her cousin scowled slightly in a horribly familiar way.

"So? If you can get me there, and you _will_ , you might need another sword. Get your weapons!"

A few minutes later, they were in Ponder's study. He had activated the omniscope and was having a shouted conversation with an unseen but present fourth.

++Your daughter is in the Dungeon Dimensions, Professor Stibbons.++The entities who dwell there have taken her.++ And yes, I can get the three of you there.++ One moment.++Computing.++

"The _three_ of us?" Ponder said. He looked into the face of a niece who was nodding at him and placing a hand on her sword-hilt. _The_ sword. The family weapon. Which the Dungeon Dimension entities had met before.

"Oh..." he said, realising.

 _It is correct, Professor Stibbons_. said a voice only he and Bekki could hear. _We will get there by our own means. And, liewe hecksie? Please tell Johanna Viktoria that this time we had no need to borrow the sword. She is here to wield it herself._

Bekki relayed this. _So this one is Johanna Viktoria,_ she thought. _I'd never asked if she had a middle name before. It's funny how you can not know things about your own family..._

Bekki nodded welcome to Johanna van der Kaiboutje and wondered what _her_ middle name had been. Livinia, wasn't it? Or perhaps Lavinia. She'd have to ask.

"They're here?" Young Johanna asked.

"Ja." Bekki replied. "Looks like almost the whole family's here."

"Bad luck for them, though." Johanna replied. "Whoever they are."

"You'll see soon..." Bekki said, as a glowing octogram appeared on the floor of the study.

++Step into the octogram, if you please. ++This is your portal in.++

"What octogram?" Johanna asked. Bekki suddenly realised her cousin was unable to see octarine.

"Take five paces forward and one to your right – staying between me and Dad." Bekki said.

"Don't move your feet." Ponder requested. "Or if you have one foot inside and one foot outside a magical portal.."

" _Eina_." Johanna said, quietly.

"Ouch, indeed." Ponder said. "And tuck your arms in tight..."

There was a shimmering in the air, as a determined green blur leapt into the magical octogram with them. Bekki felt her cousin stagger and sway. She steadied her.

And then black gritty sand was underfoot and a cold wind soughed as they arrived...

"Bugger me." said Grindguts the Destroying Demon. "This is not a nice place."

Bekki took stock. Johanna drew her machete. Ponder laid a cautious retraining hand on her arm...

 _ **The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.**_

Elsewhere on the Disc, due to the relative position of the Discworld's sun over Howondaland, it was about two in the afternoon and the sun was still high in the sky.7

And in a frozen moment of time, Princess Ruth N'Kweze realised she was about to die. An assassin had finally got through. Ruth watched another of her guard, a man in Denizulu's command, picked up in the huge cobra jaws of the thing. The serpent head worried at what was now a corpse, then contemptuously flicked it aside. Ruth tried not to watch as the broken body hit the ground. There were a lot of bodies there now, male and female. But more of her soldiers – and Denizulu's – were pressing an attack. The thing had so many assegais sticking out of it that it looked like a grotesque porcupine. But as Ruth watched, horrifed, the latest hacked gash from a broad-bladed spear knitted and healed. She saw a spear that had gone in deeply being extruded and squeezed out of the wound it had inflicted. The spear popped out with a reverse sucking noise and as she watched, the wound closed and healed, leaving only smooth scale.

The spears of her warriors were having absolutely no effect at all.

Yet they still pressed in, to defend her. Their princess, their iNdula. Ruth quietly admired their bravery, felt pain at their loyalty, and exasperation at their stupidity. _But her people were dying for her..._

She watched as a better-aimed spear practically hacked off one of the creature's arms. Then, with sick inevitability, she watched it re-knit and re-attach itself. Then saw how the woman who had aimed the blow died. She also saw Zoya, her Cossack captain, gathering a squad of warriors together to strike in unison, shouting things _like It can't get all of us! Let's show this bitch how we can really fight!_

Ruth shook herself.

 _Time to show them how a Zulu Princess can face death. Maybe they'll make a song out of this._

She lifted the absurd ceremonial assegai, less than thirty inches long with the ludicrous silver-chased blade.

 _Maybe I'll hit somewhere vital..._

" _Ayiko bia!"_ she screamed, in challenge, and leapt forward. She was dissappinted that the pregnancy bulge – _Gods, my child!_ \- made fast movement impossible. But the thing seemed surprised, as if Ruth leaping forward to challenge it was the last thing it expected.

Ruth sensed a movement in the air. The thing whipped and swayed along its length: she looked up and realised Sissi n'Kima had leapt onto its back, using some of the still-embedded assegais as if they were rungs of a ladder, and was stabbing down into the creature's head. It screamed, unable to reach the impudent human female on its back. Sissi hung on grimly with one hand and tried to drive the spear deeper into its head. Ruth realised: she was going for its brain. A vital target.

Its attention distracted, Ruth tried to guess where its heart was. She tried to remember Johanna Smith-Rhodes' teaching in herpetology and sought to visualise what she'd once seen of a dissected snake. Then scaled it up. Maybe you could hit a vital point for just long enough, like temporarily killing an Undead...

 _If this works, a Zulu has just had her life saved by the Red Death. Talk about irony._

The thing really screamed as Ruth's assegai hit home. Ruth withdrew the weapon, trying to keep hold of it for another blow. She expected to see the wound knit and heal and leave no trace.

She blinked.

The wound she had inflicted _smouldered._ Black acrid smoke wisped off it. A deep purple-black blood oozed. For the first time. _And the wound stayed open._

Ruth blinked again. Of course. Undead.

"Silver!" she shouted. "The moon-metal! The moon-metal hurts it! And bring fire! We need fire!"

A thrashing arm from the thing knocked her heavily to one side. Ruth realised it was not in complete control of its movements. It must be in pain. But she, Ruth N'Kweze, just wanted to lie there, staring up into a brilliant blue sky, so beautiful, a nice afternoon to die...

Ruth realised something. She looked up to see Sissi stabbing ineffectually down into the creature's head with her spear. Ruth shook her head. She gathered herself and made a decision.

"Sissi! Catch! Silver weapon!" she screamed, and tossed the spear as hard and as accurately as she could. She watched as her friend and assistant caught it one-handed. Then laid back again, weaponless and feeling very tired.

Then a large shape was looming over her, her shadow falling over Ruth. She looked up in mild surprise to see Sophie, the witch-girl from Ankh-Morpork. Well, from Lancre, anyway.

"You wanted fire, princess?" the witch said. She was clearly scared, but gathering herself.

Ruth nodded. Sophie stood protectively over her.

"Watch this." she said.

The first fireball tore into the thing's approximate shoulder and blew an arm off. It did not regenerate. It screeched in agony. Ruth saw Sissi N'Kima being flung off its thrashing back, and winced with pain and sorrow as she hit the ground and did not move. People ran to her.

But the silver-chased assegai was embedded deeply into the creature's skull.

And as she was digesting this, the second, and then a third, fireball from the young witch hit it in quick succession. It screamed one last time then slumped. It did not move again.

"Sophie?" Ruth said, quietly. "Help me up, will you? I need to be on my feet. Thank you."

 _ **The Dungeon Dimensions. Eternal night.**_

Bekki saw her sister Ruth, sitting cross-legged in the sand. There was a semi-circle of the disgusting and vaguely ridiculous Things in front of her, watching intently. One stood proud from the rest as her sister industriously sketched on the artist's pad.

"I could use an eraser. A rubber." Ruth said, in the intent artist-at-work way she knew so well. Bekki watched, with sick inevitability, as one popped into existence where her sister could reach it.

She realised the Thing was holding a pose.

 _~~We shall reward you well, Ruth Leonora Daquirmia Smith-Rhodes Stibbons._

Bekki looked sharply at her father.

"Daquirmia?" she asked.

Ponder Stibbons grimaced and appeared to slump slightly.

"Oh, shit." he said, meaningfully.

One of the Things looked his way. Bekki was sure it was smiling.

 _~~Indeed, Professor Stibbons. When a little while ago you attributed the name, you thought in jest, to your youngest daughter. Your wife warned you not to make such jokes. It allowed us a doorway. Leonard of Quirm. Leonora Daquirmia. Such names resonate._

"Oh, _Dad."_ Bekki said, reproachfully.

Her father hung his head.

 _~~And you cannot interfere, Professor Stibbons. Nor can your older daughter. You are both magic-users. The rules are inflexible on this. You may, however, watch. Ruth will return to your world and her drawings of us will be published and circulate. She ill be our agent in your world. People will see her work and Believe. She is our doorway to power. And such power, inside the minds and imaginations of people!_

"If you _dare_ interfere with my sister." Bekki said, stepping forward. "I am going to say the Rules can go voetsaak. You've seen me using a sword before. _Some_ of you must have survived. I couldn't get you all."

Bekki , Ponder realised, was angry. And when she got angry, she was her mother's daughter. All the way.

 _~~You cannot interfere_. The oily obscene voice said again. _The last time you were the subject. You were resistant to our will. We could not touch you. Those others helped in a most unfair way. But here you are an observer. Powerless to intervene._

"Wellnow." Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande said. " _I'm_ here. I'm not in any way a magic user. Magic brought me here, I'll agree. But I'm not magical. Therefore the rules don't apply. And you've seen this sword before. I think we're going to have a little _fun_ together, don't you?"

 _Give them Hell, Johanna Viktoria._ another voice said. _"And by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you at last."_

Johanna jumped. She looked round.

"I can _see_ you." she said, slowly. "But only _three_ of you. Rebecka said there are four of you?"

"Different rules apply here." Bekki said. "Dad might say we aren't in regular space-time here. This place is real. Just... differently real."

Young Johanna blinked. Bekki took charge.

"Johanna Viktoria. I think I'm going to have to call you that to keep it straight. This is Johanna van der Kaiboutje Smith-Rhodes. Who founded our family. Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes. Her oldest daughter. Then there would have been Johanna Martia Smith-Rhodes. Who is... elsewhere... for an indefinite period. And this is Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes. Oupa's sister, who died young. Our great-aunt. If Mum were here, she's Johanna Famke Smith-Rhodes, of course. And _you're_ here. Johanna Viktoria Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande. Which means there are four of you still."

 _~~Happy families. How touching._

 _With one sword._ said Johanna Cornelia. _And a living person who knows how to use it. We've watched her._

 _Although that pink stuff in your hair. What were you thinking of?_ said Johanna van der Kaiboutje. She shook her head.

LADIES? PLEASE REFRAIN FROM ANY PRECIPITATE ACTION JUST NOW.

Bekki turned round.

"Oh." she said. "you again."

Death turned to contemplate her.

A TRUE WITCH'S REPLY, REBECKA.

"Hold on." Young Johanna said. "I can see you. Does that mean..."

JOHANNA VIKTORIA SMITH-RHODES-MAAIJANDE, I BELIEVE? NO. YOUR TIME IS NOT YET COME. AS YOUR COUSIN HAS SAID, DIFFERENT RULES APPLY HERE. I HAVE BEEN QUITE NEAR TO YOU ON QUITE A FEW OCCASSIONS, HOWEVER. HULLE NOEM JY DIE PIENKEDOOD, JA-NIE? MOENIE SO VERRAS WEES NIE. EK PRAAT ALLE TALE.

"When you think about it, it really isn't that surprising that Death speaks every language." Bekki said.

INDEED. I WOULD ADVISE YOU TO WATCH, FOR NOW. I HAVE ALREADY SPOKEN TO RUTH LEONORA. NO EXTRA NAMES, BY THE WAY. JUST THE TWO SHE WAS GIVEN AT HER BIRTH. THEY WILL SUFFICE. RUTH KNOWS WHAT SHE IS DOING. AND SHE WAS GIVEN A GREAT WEAPON. NOT WITH EXPLICIT STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AGAINST THE RULES. BUT SHE WORKED IT OUT FOR HERSELF. TRUST ME. YOU WILL SHORTLY SEE, IF ALL GOES WELL, THAT SHE IS HER MOTHER'S DAUGHTER AND A SMITH-RHODES WOMAN.

Death paused and nodded at the family group.

AS ARE NO LESS THAN FIVE OTHERS HERE PRESENT. HOW ARE YOU, BY THE WAY, MEVROU SMITH-RHODES? KEEPING WELL, I TRUST?

"So.. you don't have anything against, you know, dead people being here?" young Johanna asked. "I thought you'd be dissaproving or something."

Death grinned at her, somewhat inevitably. He nodded pleasantly at the Ancestors. They smiled back, perfectly relaxed.

I COLLECTED ALL THREE IN THEIR APPOINTED TIMES. WHAT THEY DO AFTER THAT IS ENTIRELY UP TO THEM. I HAVE NO ISSUES.

 _Pleased to hear it._ said Johanna Francesca. In the foreground, Ruth flipped over a new page on her pad and said "Next, please. I think... _you_ , the one with the lobster claws and the tentacles. Do you people have names, by the way? So I can write them under the pictures? Thank you."

Ponder Stibbons watched his daughter sketching and gibbered inside, an anxious father who could not intervene. But a little Wizard voice was insistently whispering _Everything has a true name. Everything. And Ruth is getting them to tell her their true names. Voluntarily. This is important. It's in all the Lore and stories. And what can you do with a true name?_

He forced himself to watch. In the background. Johanna Viktoria was excitedly getting to know her relatives. Some sort of family reunion appeared to be going on; he heard womens' voices happily chatting in Vondalaans as if it were a family braai on the back lawn of the huis.

 _Blood River was a shambles, start to finish. A complete scheisshuis of a battle that should not have been fought. It's where I got these scars on my face..._

 _You know I dissaprove of you using profanity, Johanna Cornelia._

 _Asseblief, mutti. But stupid men started that war. I got the assegai through my face. And died of the wounds that never really healed, two years later. In those circumstances, a little swearing, ja-nie?_

 _Tell me about the Kokoda Trail battle, Johanna Viktoria..._

Bekki watched her sister flip another page over and call another Thing forward. Time was elastic here. Ruth might have done three sketches, she might have done thirty. But her sister wasn't tiring at all; she seemed driven by the compulsion of the artist to make Art. Death, in the background, looked on impassively. He wasn't moving a bone and was leaning patiently on his scythe.

At last, Ruth stretched her legs and stood up. Looking tiny and frail, she considered for a moment or two.

"I got all my drawings of you, and I thank you for letting me draw you all." she said. "Now I need to tell you what I'm going to do next."

Ruth smiled up at her audience, a little girl, innocent and without guile.

"My art teacher gave me a book to read." she said, conversationally. "It was very interesting. Especially the bits about the History Monks who live in a lovely valley near the Hub where cherry trees grow. I like cherries. They're really yummy. Don't you?"

Ruth smiled, beatifically.

"Anyway. The story says the monks, or the ones who could draw really really fast,8 used to go into the Otherworld and hunt demons."

Ruth reached into a pocket of her dress, seemingly absent-mindedly.

"They'd find a _leyak_ , that's their word for a demon, and draw the demon as accurately as they could. They were very good artists and did some really scary pictures of leyaks. And you know, they believed once they'd captured the true likeness, that's the very best picture they could draw, that if they then _destroyed_ that picture, they'd killed it." **(8)**

Ruth held up the box of matches she'd stolen from Dorothea's kitchen.

"I had to steal these from our cook. I feel really bad about that as I love Dorothea. But I can't do what you ask and go back to the real world with these pictures. I know Daddy and my big sister are waiting over there for me to take me home. I want them to be proud of me. Even though I'm playing with fire. Which Mummy and Daddy said they'd be really really angry about."

Ruth tore a picture at random, from her pad.

"I think I'll start with..." she pointed a finger. " _You."_

The Things screamed as Ruth struck a match. She paused a moment, then set light to the page. Her selected Thing screamed. Then burst into flame. It writhed and was consumed along with the page. Then Ruth dropped the charred corner to the ground, and repeated the process with another.

 _Maar, she's bright_. said Johanna Francesca.

 _Ruthless, too. Must get it from her mother._ agreed Johanna Cornelia.

"You got into my dreams. You frightened me. You gave me nightmares." Ruth said. "That was _naughty_. I really don't like that. Well, you aren't going to get into my dreams any more."

 _Reckon she'll go to the Assassins' School?_ asked Johanna van der Kaiboutje. Another Thing screamed in pain and fear and went up like a torch.

Ruth lit another page from her pad. Bekki spotted a new complication. It looked as if several of the more desperate Things were massing to rush at Ruth and physically prevent her...

"This is where _we_ come in, I think." Young Johanna said. She drew her sword. Bekki drew hers.

"Not magical at all. Just a sword. So no rules broken. " Bekki said. "Won't be long, Dad."

Grindguts the demon grinned, cracked his knuckles, and followed them.

Ponder made polite conversation with the Ancestors as the Things screamed. There was a periodic whoomph of flame, or the crunch of metal hitting organic material, and a periodic emphatic statement of YOU BELONG DEAD.

Finally, Ruth was encouraged to burn the remaining pictures in her pad, just to make sure.

"Now we can go home." Bekki said hugging her sister protectively. "Told you I'd fight for you, baby."

Ruth, eight years old again, suddenly burst into tears. She ran to her father for a hug.

"We'll get you home, sweetheart." Ponder said.

Ruth wailed.

"It was _horrible_ , daddy! _They made me burn my drawings!_ That should never have to happen!"

And, elsewhere...

 _Well, Johanna Viktoria, we may never meet again like this till your time comes. But it was good._

"I understand. I feel privileged."

Her ancestors gave her virtual hugs.

 _Carry on making us proud._ said Johanna Francesca. _Oh – and I really like the pink hair. Wish I'd thought of something like that._

Ponder Stibbons took a deep breath. He had just seen what the family he'd married into was capable of. It should not have surprised him. But he felt appreciative at how two daughters and a niece had turned the situation around. He'd seen the same sort of thing in Johanna, his Johanna, on any number of occassions. Of course his daughters would have the same streak in them.

"Time to go home, I think." he said. He wondered if they could get back before Johanna did. He'd asked HEX to keep her informed and he'd even had a brief word with Eve, who had been concerned that Miss Ruth had gone missing. He wondered exactly how much time had passed here and what the time would be in the real world. Ponder adjusted the weight of Ruth in his arms. She hugged around his neck, a little girl now who needed Daddy.

"Bekki, let's see about organising a doorway to go back?"

 _ **The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.**_

The clear-up was beginning after the fight. Indunalas were barking orders and shouting at soldiers who were going into after-battle shock and closing down. The bodies of the dead soldiers were carefully and reverentially collected. Some families and friends were wailing as mourning began. The smouldering corpse of the creature was carefully being avoided. It smelt bad, already.

Sophie Rawlinson, standing close to the Princess and ready to steady her if it was needed, admired the strength of will that was keeping her upright. Ruth had said she needed to be seen alive and on her feet. This was important. She also wanted to know what the Hell was going on. And keep me informed on Sissi. Sophie, you know some healing? Thank you for what you did. Can you do what you can for the people who got hurt? Find out about Sissi. Then come and tell me.

Sophie had then gone to do what she could for the wounded. There weren't too many of them: the thing had killed rather than wounded in the close-quarter fighting.

She shook her head. Sophie Jane Rawlinson, aged fifteen, from Rawlinson's End in the Shires, **(9)** where her family had been the squirearchy for absolute _years_. A pupil at the Quirm Academy For Young Ladies until she'd caught magic. Sent to Lancre to learn witching and the Heaven-sent chance to be with horses. Lots of horses. Heaven. Then she'd got her Pegasus and was now in training for the Pegasus Service. Which had brought her to this strange foreign place. And to a battle to the death.

She shook herself, and went to the job that was in front of her. Where fierce warriors were now saluting her respectfully and chanting in her honour. This would make things easier...

"Let's jolly well get some sort of hospital set up, shall we?" she said, decisively. "And I want it _clean_. And I want you to get me a lot of things. Chop-chop!"

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

"So you're back, then." Johanna Smith-Rhodes said. She was relieved. She had arrived home to find the house empty of her family. Eve had explained as best she could. Johanna figured the best place to wait had been in Ponder's study. She had asked Eve to get her a drink, a big one, and had sat at Ponder's desk, figuring that if they'd left from here they'd return here. Then she'd glared at the desktop omniscope.

"HEX." she said. "Whet the bleddy Hell is going on?"

Hex had kept her informed. Johanna took a deep breath and realised she could only wait. And hope. As this was magic, it was down to Ponder and Bekki to deal with. Not her area of expertise at all. Although they'd taken Young Johanna with them...

++There is a long tradition of this, Johanna.++ the exploring party contains a magic-user and a fighter.++ To cover all eventualities++ Ponder is the magic-user.++Johanna is the fighter.++ Bekki combines both.++

Johanna accepted this. And waited. Then the air popped and people returned, an agonising wait later.

Ruth leapt from her father's arms and ran to her mother. Johanna registered that she'd been crying.

"If anybody's _hurt_ you..." Johanna said, darkly.

"We got them all, Aunt Johanna." her niece said. " _Asseblief_. Sorry. None left over for you."

Johanna nodded with satisfaction. She registered something about her niece appeared to have changed in some indefinite way.

"That was probably the single most amazing experience of my life..." Young Johanna said, slowly.

"Care to tell me about it?" Aunt Johanna said. She called for a pot of tea. This was going to be a _long_ mission debriefing...

 _ **The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.**_

Irena Politek did several slow circuits of the kraal. She had arrived to drop off some mail and to collect Sophie for her flight home. She hadn't expected to see disorder, smouldering craters and the aftermath of a battle.

She also registered several large birds in the sky, flying circuits around her Pegasus and looking menacing. Regarding them with a Witch's eye, she realised exactly who they were, and scowled.

"Oh, for goodness sake. I warn you that if you come any nearer, you will be looking at a fireball from directly in front. If you can't do anything useful, piss off out of my flight-path. You are in my way, you silly little men."

The birds flew nearer, but made no attempt to impede. Irena nodded at them, meaningfully. Two could play the intimidation game, and it wasn't anything new. She'd faced down military carpets over Klatch, predatory cranes over Agatea and winged harpies over Ephebe. Other nations had their air forces too, these days. So why not the Zulus... Ruth had imported her own air-users when she realised she'd been over-flown by an enemy who had taken iconographs at leisure. If Crowbar Dreyer came back, he'd find the airspace now had air-capable Witch-Finders in it, ones who could take the were-form of vultures and night-flying impondulo birds.

Ruth had not wanted to do that. A dozen or so Witch-Finders in her kraal was not something completely under her control and they had their own agenda. But she still needed air cover.

"Want me to pit the heid on any of yon scraggy crows, mistress?" Buggy Swires asked from the mane. "Nae bother. Just one of them gets too close and I leap over and ask if his his mother can sew..."

Irena shook her head. The Pegasus Service pilots could employ weapons in self-defence, yes. But so far no clear attack had been made. Not one that justified aiming a Feegle at them. And the Zulus were a friendly country. For now.

Irena made a four-point landing and dismounted. She took in the scene.

"Care to tell me what's been happening here?" she asked. The warrior, a man, she noted, made the salute and ran to find somebody who spoke Morporkian. Irenan waited. Then a woman warrior, one she vaguely knew from Ankh-Morpork, ran to her.

"Hi. Chakkie, isn't it?" Irena said.

Chakolate N'Golante was another graduate Assassin in Ruth's service. She looked worried.

"Please come with me, Sergeant Politek?" Chakkie requested. "Things are a bit confused here right now. Err... I'm covering Sissi's duties for now. The Princess ordered me to step up. Sissi got wounded in the fight, you see."

Irena digested this.

"Where's Ruth?" she asked. "And what happened here, exactly?"

"We're not sure. But I'll explain what I saw..."

Irena listened. She asked to be taken to the hospital, to see if there was anything she could do for the injured people. Here she found Sophie, who was moving among the injured, doing what she could, and barking orders at Zulu women who were somehow getting the idea, despite speaking no Morporkian. Irena took in the black pointy hat with the fetching white neck-scarf attached, and smiled to herself. It looked _right_ , somehow. Then she busied herself attending to injured people, bandaging, stitching, and taking pain away. She talked to Sophie in between patients and got a picture of what had happened.

"I see." Irena said. "Listen. It needs more than we can do. Especially for Sissi. She's in a bad way. I need to get back to Ankh-Morpork and get a few things together that this place needs. And to get a report to Vetinari, soonest. If it turns out Crowbar Dreyer sent the assassin, this could mean war. Vetinari needs to know. Quickly. And I want to get other people here. To help out. If you see Ruth – resting up, is she? How's the baby? - tell her I mean no disrespect. And to rein in her bloody wizards, as if any of them try to attack me or my Pegasus, there'll be another fight. Feathers flying. _Literally_. See you soon, at latest in about two hours."

A little over three hours later, Irena was back. Towing a magic carpet with Igors on it. These included Matron Igorina from the Assassins' Guild. The Igors had gently steaming cold-boxes. There was also a wizard, from the university: he held the position of Emeritus Chair of Ghatian Magic and Mysticism. Arch-Chancellor Ridcully had genially rousted him out, and said to pack for a warm climate, you have got five minutes, laddie. Vetinari's instructions. And mine. So get a shift on.

The wizard blinked, then went to examine the corpse of the attacker, expressing professional and scientific excitement.

Irena shook her head, directed the Igors to the makeshift hospital, then went to find Ruth.

* * *

" _Where the bloody hell were you people?"_ Ruth demanded. She had regained something of her usual composure. And she was angry. Her husband Denizulu stood beside her, trying to ignore the pain of a bandaged and splinted arm. He had lost twelve good men dead and wounded. He was furious too. Ruth had lost twenty-three Lionesses. He grieved for the dead and felt for the wounded. He was angry too, reflecting that for him, it could have been worse. And he'd broken the haft of his name-spear, the one given to him when he came of age, when he'd stabbed the thing in defence of his wife and child. It had swiped him away contemptuously. He'd hit the ground awkwardly and he feared he'd broken his shield-arm. But broken bones healed.

The knot of Witch-Finders in front of her shuffled awkwardly.

"I asked for you people. To provide a magical defence. When the need arose you were nowhere to be seen. I ask again. Where were you? You failed in your duty! You can shout and rage about the white witches being alien and evil. You can scream at me to banish them from my domain. But when it came to it, one white witch, one who is barely fifteen, was there, and she was more use than the whole sorry ragged bunch of you put together. Between she and Sissi, who by the way nearly _died_ out there, they killed that thing. _And you were nowhere to be seen!_ You thought it was more important to take wing and menance another friend as she came in to land, a friend who is welcome, a friend who even as we speak is bringing healers and healing!"

Ruth trembled with fury.

"I petitioned my father to send you. My father will hear a report on how you conducted yourselves. Reflect on that. I'm minded to banish you all from my kraal. But only my father may decide your fates. You are his men, or were. Now get out and go about your duties. If you're capable, that is. And _not another word_ , or I swear I'll kill you all myself!"

Ruth waited while they shuffled out. She breathed out.

"Chakkie?" she said. "Find the witches, would you, and ask if one of them can attend me? I really don't want to drag them away from the wounded people for too long. But I rather suspect I'm getting contractions. All that excitement brought it on."

Ruth paused and said

"I may need to be moved to the birthing place. Soon. Get a strong discreet guard out there, could you? Thanks. And I believe I'm _really_ going to need a Lancre-trained Witch."

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 **(1)** Except when the language of the arts was Brindisian

 **(2)** Except when the language of music was Brindisian, Überwaldean or sometimes Far Überwaldean

 **(3)** Except when the language of the culinary arts was Brindisian or sometimes Toledan

 **(4)** Antoinette was a daughter of a lumberjacking family and had brought Axes and Saws with her as transferable trade skills of interest to Assassination. She also taught Combat Ice-Skating, also known as hockey, and had a fondness for maple syrup and poutine.( ) Although not together.

 **(5)** If there's a Discworld Belgium, then the other half of it _has_ to speak a sort of French. The illogic calls for this. The name on Roundworld sounds exquisitely odd: Wallonia or Waloon. What to do with it on the Disc _… la pays des Wallies_? A Quirmian-speaking Phlaanderer: a Wallie, or une Wallette?

 **(6)** Johanna wanted to make a point to Ponder that science wasn't just about the abstract and theoretical, it could be practical too. The SP largely carried papers on advanced theoretical magic from the universities at Brindisi, Genua, Braseneck and Unseen. Ponder Stibbons practically had a regular column. Johanna had bet him she could get published too. Ponder had said "Go on, then." He would very soon see a paper on _Establishing The Degree Of Leucistic Albinism In The Hublands Bipolar Bear And Other Winter-Adapted Species_ by Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes, PhD, gracing its pages. Johanna had picked the topic with care and was exploring it with professional diligence. She had a follow-up article planned on _Melanistic Phenomena Amongst Ravens, Starlings and Blackbirds._

 **(9)** It was about eight-thirty in the evening over Ankh-Morpork. This was the sort of thing that played merry Hell with the body-clocks of Pegasus Service pilots.

 **(8)** Or who could slow time so that they could take their leisure and do a _really good_ drawing. And yes, I'm lifting from Graham Masterson's nasty but lingering horror story about Indonesian mysticism here, _**Death Trance**_. Where Balinese monks go gunning for really nasty demons. A sort of Boer people appear at one point. (Dutch East Indies, as was). Read this if you want a horror story that truly lingers – possibly his best.

 **(9)** I know. Vivian Stanshall's wonderfully eccentric upperclass English family, the Rawlinsons of Rawlinson's End.

* * *

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where all those simmering ideas go, like the ingredients of a good stew, to simmer until the moment comes to serve them into bowls with the equivalent of good chunky fresh bread and red cabbage.**_

"beneath any jollity there is a foundation of fury." – Neil Gaiman on Sir Terry Pratchett. An essay worth finding and reading.

Hearing about the latest religiously inspired murder in Paris. Depressing. Especially since the perpetrator is said to have shouted _ **Allhuhu Akbhar! – God is great –**_ before lashing out. Fired up Google Translate and gotالله لا يعجب كثيرا - _Allah la yuejib kathirana_ \- "God is not greatly impressed".

A review to "Discworld Tarot" that said

I've HAD IT with Trump bashing by media! Imho, Fanfiction should be mostly politically neutral. I get that the Election was a hot mess, but the Media are insane. I just couldn't take anymore.

Oh dear. Well, you can't please everybody… a real shame the reviewer (the same one who gave the enigmatic "See ya!") didn't leave the option open to message them back, but worth discussing here.

Firstly – ALL reviews are welcome. They're a validation that people out there are reading the stuff and care enough, and are motivated enough, to post a reply. Thank you.

And of course I like the praise. Who doesn't? But the more negative and critical views are pretty much vital and more useful to a writer as while they don't fuel the ego, they point useful things out – where I could improve, what's wrong with the work, even the little things like duplicated footnotes or silly little typos or lines/dialogue that clunks and can be improved. Silly little things I'm inclined to miss and when remedied improve the final quality. Keep pointing them out.

But… _Fanfiction should be mostly politically neutral._ Now there's a statement. It deserves a reply.

To begin with… nothing is absolutely politically neutral. Nothing. The BBC prides itself on being "politically neutral" and to an extent manages it. But it still has an "editorial direction" which in a very British sort of way manages to occupy the same space without being "political". That's probably inevitable. I may get onto discussing this in detail later.

At the other end of the scale, you get horrors like FOX-TV in the USA, and the _**Daily Mail**_ in Britain. Which _are_ overtly political whilst claiming to be objective and seekers-after-truth.

CAN fanfiction be politically neutral?

The short answer is "no".

The long answer: you are building on a pre-existing world originally generated by the mind of somebody else. To be true to the original it has to convey the mood and the atmosphere and the "ethos" of that world. Which in this case means carrying something of the spirit and world-view of Sir Terry Pratchett. As expressed in his creation of the Discworld, a marvellously realised conception that reflects this world through the medium of fantasy, and latterly steampunk scifi. Terry does have a few definite ideas about society, social order, the way people should conduct themselves, and so on – the sort of concepts which for want of a better place to put them, end up in the general ball-park area of "politics".

Terry Pratchett's "politics", if you could call them that – seems an insultingly banal and limited term for a world-view that took a lifetime to form – are easy to perceive but hard to categorise. As with so much else you can't easily stick a label on it, but if I were forced to assign categories to the world-view that comes out in the Discworld, words like "left-liberal" – "liberal" used here as Americans might understand it. "Anarchic", in the strict interpretation – that only those systems of government that people select for them selves and voluntarily choose to be governed by are ultimately legitimate. A distaste for those systems imposed from outside that ultimately depend on force to legitimise them. Oh, and "left" here is in the British/European interpretation of the word, a social democratic tradition which even after Blair is still further to the left than the Democratic Party in the USA. (To us, the Democratic Party is only "left" in the sense that it is nowhere near as far to the right as the Republicans, and we can get puzzled that the Democrats are thought of as "left-wing" in any meaningful sense. Relative to the Republicans, I suppose, they're a foot or two further to the Left. But still a party of what looks, to us, like the centre-right…)

So Terry, and this is over-simplifying horribly, can be thought of as having a very British sort of left-liberal-anarchism which comes out loud and clear in the Discworld.

Straight away, you've therefore got politics. Like it or not.

I could go into this a lot more – my first draft got horribly detailed – but small-p politics are integral to the Discworld. It's part of the three-dimensionality that give the place such vivid depth and reality as a reflection of our world. Part of the weft and weave that makes it so compelling. Not the only strand of the tapestry by any means – but a key one.

Then where Terry leaves off, the fanfic writers take over.

And yes – I'm left-wing. In the European tradition, which American readers of a certain mind-set would regard as "dyed in the wool communist". I call it "democratic socialism", for want of a better word, with overtones of Christian Socialism. That's a European political tradition too and light-years away from polished televangelists in sharp suits telling their viewers that Jesus would vote Republican and so should you.

This inevitably gets into my writing.

And it's also where critical reviews are useful: one wise reviewer pointed out to me that my tale _**The Civilian Assistant**_ was getting overtly political to the point where the political theory was taking over the story. I looked at it again, re-read it and realised – that reviewer was right. Getting polemical is never a good thing. So I throttled back and it became a series of shorts about the everyday life of the City Watch with the politics minimised.

And devising "Cenotia", based on a few oblique hints in canon, about the Discworld Israel, became a minefield in its way. I severely self-censored here as I didn't want to lose readers or get embroiled in a flame war. Yes, I do have a few thoughts and opinions on modern Israel and its relations with its neighbours. It's just that you have got to be so bloody careful. So Cenotia has no West Bank or Gaza Strip, for instance. I'd have _liked_ to write them, but I could see the perils looming up from miles away. And they really didn't belong in that story anyway. And, as tvtropes might say, Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement Applies. (Let's just say I've done some conscientious background reading and fact-finding about Israel-Palestine so that any comments I make – but not here - are based on sound fact and honest reporting. Wanting to find out what the bloody hell is _really_ going on there. And let's leave it at that.)

Better I do that – explore ideas of social repression, and the way people who benefit from the advantages close their eyes and minds to what's happening to the people on the receiving end - through the medium of a country which – the more I find out about it – the more I love. And which does not exist in that particular abhorrent form any more. South Africa. What can I say? I love the people. There's a deep, fascinating, history. It draws you in. Afrikaans is one of the two or three world languages which is as closely related to English as you'll get anywhere. And even post-apartheid… the thing about Zuma has its own appalling fascination. The heirs of Nelson Mandela, who fall woefully short of the standards he left. But apartheid: the pressures of that society and the way people responded to it and lived with it. What it did to them and how it shaped them. Often in surprising ways. Got to write it in the Discworld, man. It's crazy enough to be part of the Pratchett world and a mirror of ours.

 _ **Assorted other ideas – from the first draft**_

The Discworld is three-dimensional and finely realised. For Ankh-Morpork and the other described societies to work, there has to be an underpinning of the mundane and everyday, for the more fantastic elements to be believable in their context. A witch on a broomstick is everyday and normal in this world: but the Discworld would focus not on the witch, but on the reactions of people who don't so much see "flying woman in a pointy hat" as – in the case of flight technomancer Olga Romanoff – get inconvenienced by the loud sonic boom, the rattling windows, and the occasional shattered window **. (10)** And tend to get sweary about it.

Economics and politics are there in the Discworld, like it or not. They're part of the fabric of everyday life, just as they are on Roundworld.

And as with so much else, Terry does not make it easy for the reader to discern his position.

What for instance can the political Right see and approve of in Ankh-Morpork?

Well, there's no or little regulation. The "free market economy" applies with the explicitly stated minimum of Government intervention strangling business. Taxation, despite protests (and some people always complain) appears to be minimal. The argument of the free market is that an economy functions best when it is self-regulating and the best triumphs, driving out the worst. In the absence of onerous taxation, the wealth then trickles down from the intrepid entrepreneurs and adventurers at the top who take the risks and therefore should be allowed to keep the benefits without a thieving Government robbing them (tax). Everybody benefits because of the talented minority who generate the wealth.

This is indeed how Ankh-Morpork works. It's an illustration of neo-liberal economics in the classic sense.

Political conservatives can also take pride in the class system – no King, at the moment, but a well-defined structure of social rank and privilege where (almost) everybody knows their place.

Ankh-Morpork, working to the philosophy of laissez-faire economics, is a surprisingly vigorous place full of ideas, innovation, enterprise and movement. (however, the Man who generally embodies laissez-faire and believes in small government, - he IS the government – is always there).

So far, so conservative.

Then you get the other side of the coin and start to discern what Terry Pratchett might _really_ think.

The role of kings and nobility, for instance. A concession that the founder of a noble house might have indeed had characteristics of nobility, ability, competence, et c, that set him apart and make him exceptional for the right reason. But then the wealth and prestige descend, unearned, to his descendants for no better reason than they happen to be his genetic offspring. And by degrees you end up with the current crop of Rusts, Eorles, Venturis, Selachiis, et c.

The idea that a drooling malevolent idiot (eg Joffrey in GoT) might end up in a position of power just because his father was – the hereditary principle. Which is the drawback with royalty and could not, of course, ever happen in an egalitarian republic like the USA.

And the subversion of " _ **Lord of the Rings**_ " – that the hidden King will come out of the wilderness, rescue the City where he is born to be King, and the morning after, he goes into the presence of the Ruling Steward and tells him that he frankly doesn't _want_ to be King, you're good at this, you may as well carry on as we were... but makes the veiled threat that if necessary, if there's no other alternative, he _can_ take over. For a while. In case of emergency, break glass.

The world doesn't need any more kings. But it _can_ use people like Vetinari – a ruler who realises his rule is conditional and not absolute, despite what people think, and that if he annoys too many people at once the most primal democratic vote of all will be counted. and he can't count on a pension plan or a long retirement, were that to happen.

Here's an anecdote: I once attended a Conservative Party fund-raiser and garden fete in Norfolk, England. Norfolk is a place that's solidly blue on the British political map with one or two little flickers of red. (American readers: switch the colors. Over here, blue is conservative and Right, red denotes radical and Left. Capital-C Liberal, to us, is a sort of urine-yellow colour (with good if unintended reason) and the British map has quite a few blobs. Not as many as before they pitched in with the Conservatives, but they're still there).

I'd been invited by friends who I liked and respected despite the handicap of their being Conservative Party members. There are _some_. That's important too: just because somebody has political allegiances you don't share doesn't make them idiots or slavering monsters. **(11)** I suspect I'd find Boris Johnson to be a really likeable bloke despite his politics being somewhere to the right of Ghengiz Khan, for instance. I could happily spend time in Boris J's company and enjoy it – because, whilst horribly wrong in so many ways, he is a genuinely nice guy.

Anyway, Norfolk. The sort of place where if Donald Duck stood for political office wearing a blue rosette, he'd be in as an MP by a thumping majority. That sort of place. Manchester is the mirror image; substitute red rosettes. And some of our Labour MP's are Donald Ducks too. That's a failing in the British system and an argument for some alternative electoral mechanism – a Labour voter in Norfolk is disenfranchised, effectively, by postcode, as is the Conservative voter in Manchester. Both deserve better. And ideologues or idiots or both with no effective opposition can do as they like, unchecked. One-party rule by democracy. Look at local councils which are unfit for purpose; though I hate to say it, Manchester City Council is a prime example. Sixty-four seats, sixty-three held by Labour, an opposition consisting of _one_ solitary Liberal. _Manchester needs Tories._ Just enough to provide an effective opposition to keep the ruling party honest and on its toes. Or you get hereditary idiots thinking they have a god-given right to rule. Result: one-party rule with no scrutiny. Many local councils on the south of England have the opposite problem: Tory rule in perpetuity.

I digress. That garden fete in Norfolk.

Garden parties on a summer day in an English rural village can be surprisingly pleasant social occasions. No barbie, BBQ or braai, just a running buffet and light drinks. And it was worth punting in a couple of quid just to walk unseen among the enemy for an afternoon – and, as my wise friend Helen G probably intended, to come to the realisation they're at bottom people just like us. I often wonder what happened to Helen – bright, attractive, clever, personable. If the Tory Party had any brains, it would have nurtured her and she'd be an MP by now – and it would have an Asset. But they didn't. Can't even find her on FB. Ah well. (She'd censored my dress sense and told me not to wear any of the t-shirts that had logos like "Send Thatcher on a Cruise" or "Margaret Thatcher – the real enemy within" or even "Free Nelson Mandela". (It _was_ the 1980's).

It was interesting. Moving among people and listening to conversations. People who were otherwise well-balanced and rational saying the most hair-raising things. Oddly enough, pro-European in the main, no Brexit voices. But what could be called the usual Thatcherite voices: ideas like, council house tenants were ridiculously subsidised and should pay "more realistic rents" as they were getting a better deal than hard-working people buying their own houses (note: nothing said about the British housing market being artificially inflated and driving mortgages more expensive than they could be), the idea that workers had too many rights and an employer should be able to discriminate against, for instance, pregnant women and non-white minorities, that South Africa was a paragon of European values, we go there every year for a few weeks, and the blacks should bloody well put up and shut up, we need servants over here who know their place and don't answer back, apartheid would be a great idea here - that sort of thing. Well, it was good to hear what the other side was prepared to say when it thought it was among its own and was safe to speak frankly…

I met the archetypical Tory woman there in twinset and pearls. She gaily said isn't it lovely? Meeting people and not talking _politics_ all the time. I said something like, err, you _did_ see the name on the banner over the gate? North Norfolk Constituency Conservative Party? People expressing opinions that could be fairly described under the general heading of politics?

There was a moment of mutual incomprehension.

She said something like

"Young man, Helen, such a lovely young woman, fearfully bright, explained to me that you belong to a different political party. Each to their own, I suppose. But you're listening to us, you're being pleasant and I may say, charming, and you are refraining from talking politics, and I thank you."

I realised then.

 _Politics is what other people do._ We are simply talking about the way things are and the way any normal right-thinking person would agree is how they should be. It only becomes _politics_ if somebody says something you don't agree with.

That was a good lesson. It's stayed with me.

Keep your mind open and always be prepared to listen to other peoples' opinions. As you could be wrong. Never just associate with people who share your views. Or else you end up, for instance, in the sort of Facebook groups and discussion forums that are there for mutual back-slapping and bias-confirmation. ( I do "ethical trolling" on various FB forums. Like going into a Christian Zionist – that is, right-wing religious with a highly selective reading of the Bible - discussion group, and asking seemingly innocent little questions, in the manner of a seeker after truth. Just to see if it gets people thinking. They're sort of time-bombs to put into people's heads. Damn, there's one CZ group that seemed to realise what I was up to and barred me from posting…. So it must have had some effect. Then again, I also got barred from a pro-Palestinian group for pointing out the inconvenient truth that Israel has a right to exist and isn't always in the wrong. They didn't like that either).

And.. I freely admit I struggle to find things to like about Donald Trump. I'm looking. I really am. But there's just a void there. I'm of an age to remember the sense of disbelieving WTF that happened when Ronald Reagan was elected president and we all wondered if the USA had collectively lost its marbles. Then again, _we'd_ just elected Thatcher. (I say "we". I was a few months too young to vote in May 1979. Not that it would have made a difference, damn it). And after Reagan we saw Bush the younger, or Shrub. And now we have Donald.

To balance things out – Hilary would have been a disaster too, in her own sweet way. The USA was caught between two unenviable choices. One thing that was lost under the radar of the unspeakable crass awfulness of Donald was Hilary C's sabre-rattling over Syria. She was ready to go to the wire and confront the Russians. And take on Putin in a staring contest. This was loud and clear. You got the horrible feeling she wanted to be another Kennedy, and fight her own version of the Cuban missiles thing. This is something Donald has largely refrained from, and you can thank him for that.

And… Americans voted for Trump because enough of them genuinely, passionately, wanted him. Americans voted for Hilary reluctantly, because she wasn't Trump and was seen as the lesser of two horrible choices. That sort of thing _matters._ You do wonder how Bernie Saunders would have fared. Ah well, it's a done deal now.

But don't look to me to refrain from little digs at Donald. I'm not made that way. The man is, in his way, comedy gold. Black comedy gold, admittedly. I'd do Hilary too, if she remained in any way significant. Something about her rubs me up the wrong way. Like an American version of a Blair Babe.

 **(10)** If light travels that much more slowly on the Disc, I imagine the speed of sound would be similarly slowed down too: Olga and Irena would be travelling at a lot less than 780mph. Mach One is easier to get to on the Disc.

 **(11)** Although look at a lot of current Tory MP's and cabinet ministers…. And shudder. I suppose their mothers love them…


	41. Nasleep

_**Strandpiel 41**_

 _ **Nasleep (een) Aftermath (part one)**_

 _ **And we're back after the last cliff-hanger resolved itself. As before – version one, still trying hard to resolve the story and move it along but there is so much ground to cover and so many sub-plots to tie... I realise this would make a James Clavell brick look slender.. same sort of epic, same sort of issues but (not yet) without any McSweeneys appearing... (Hmm. A long-established Boer family called "van der Sweeney"...).as I say - version one awaiting fine-tuning.  
**_

 _ **Now read on.**_

 _ **Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland.**_

General Hans "Crowbar" Dreyer might have been a devil-may-care military maverick. But he had not got to become a general without realising that when in the presence of superiors it was sometimes best to be very attentively respectful and to perform the essential military skill known elsewhere as the Vimes Defence, or _Reporting-to-Vetinari_.

Keenly aware he had not been invited to sit, he stood respectfully at attention with his general's cap tucked under one arm. The Members of the Cabinet, the nucleus of senior politicians who were responsible for running an entire country, and who could, for instance, decide the time was right to offer him a friendly handshake and a retirement pension in return for years of selfless dedicated service (or, worst, a sideways promotion to somewhere out of the way), looked back at him. _Some,_ Dreyer reflected, were sympathetic. He put thoughts of his own escape strategy out of his mind; Charles Smith-Rhodes had offered to set him up with a useful consultancy, if he ever had to resign his commission.

At the head of the table, the Prime Minister looked keenly at him. The fairly new Prime Minister. Dreyer suspected he was a bit _liberal_ , one who was considering some sort of detente with the Zulus.

In his mind he listed a few recent operations and little border incidents that had involved the Slew. _Nothing I can't justify_ , he thought. He ran through times, dates, locations, outcomes and personnel involved in his mind. Just to be sure. He had an idea what he was going to be asked about.

"General Dreyer." The Prime Minister said. Dreyer noted he was speaking Morporkian, damn him. That was a political choice. "We're concerned about reports reaching us of an _incident_ in the Zulu Empire."

Dreyer fought back an impulse to innocently ask "Which one, sir?" and said nothing.

"Yesterday." The Prime Minister went on. "There was an assassination attempt on Princess Ruth N'Kweze. The Paramount Crown Princess. A determined one. That very nearly suceeded."

"Yes, sir. I heard ebout thet. I was ellowed to read the reports."

" _Most_ of the reports." the PM went on. He allowed this to sink in.

"General Dreyer, can you assure us, _absolutely_ assure us, that our forces were not involved in any way? Specifically, that _your_ forces were not invoved?"

Dreyer relaxed. _Somebody_ had very nearly got to the dangerous bitch, he knew. Shame they hadn't suceeded. Remove a problem. He shrugged off a feeling of wry regret. In different circumstances he'd quite like to meet this woman. Schooled in the same place as some of his best people. Clever. Able. Talented. Shame she hadn't been born in this country. Talents like hers didn't grow on trees. What he could do with a mind like Ruth's on his team... _but this time it wasn't ours._

"No, sir." Dreyer said. "Ebsolutely, definitely, not one of mine. Wish it _hed_ been. Shame."

There was a palpable sense of relaxation around the table.

"Thank you." The PM said, breathing out. "You might have guessed there is one enormous international incident building up here? The Ankh-Morporkians got to hear about it five minutes after it happened, practically. As they do."

"Those winged horse messengers of theirs." The Minister of Education said. "Nobody else has got anything to match them. Gives Vetinari another huge advantage."

"As if he needs it." the PM agreed. "Anyway. Vetinari got the report from one of his clever women. Straight away he sent people in to _liaise_ with the Zulus. In the spirit of international co-operation. Igors to patch up the wounded. And a pointy-head from the University with the right skills."

Dreyer looked impassive. He'd gathered this much.

"The assassin was identified as a _Naga_. Ghatian. Which rules out the Assassins' Guild as they don't train weres or Undead. Bloody snake-woman. Ankh-Morpork doesn't know much about them either except that they're werecreatures and they come from Ghat. So they sent a pointy-head out who might know about these things. First one _he'd_ seen in the rather dead and stinking flesh, too."

The Prime Minister took a long cool look at his Special Operations General.

"Dreyer. Please tell me you are _not_ recruiting weres."

The Crowbar looked reflective for a moment. As if he were seriously considering a really good idea.

"No, sir. They'd be hard to keep on a leash, for one thing. I prefer human people. Weres could turn eround and bite _us_. You know where you are with people. Elthough a couple of those Igors for my medical staff would be useful, if you would ellow me to recruit some."

"No, General. Too many issues."

It was the BOSS commander who had spoken. Dreyer sighed. BOSS was generally sympathetic and onside, although he preferred them at arm's length. They had ideological issues about Igors, Dreyer reflected.1 **(1)**

Dreyer shrugged. Ideology and all the strident talk about White Howondaland, maintaining the right social values, and racial purity, didn't interest him. He just enjoyed a good fight and making winning plans. Taking on a defined enemy and kicking his guava. A Ridgeback defending his plaas, pack leader of a selected pack of Ridgebacks, Boerboels, Lipswigers and whatever other attack dog species you could name. But _never_ werewolves. And the _huis_ and _plaas_ his pack defended was an entire country. Dreyer felt proud of that.

"Generaal Dreyer."

The Crowbar turned, appreciating that _this_ speaker preferred to use good honest Vondalaans. It was Pieter van der Graaf, the Foreign Minister.

"At least we can now advise Vetinari that this was none of our doing. Although he already knows that, I suspect. You know there are excitable voices in the Zulu Empire who are pointing the finger of blame at _us_? That's dangerous. There are a dozen or so Princes and Princesses who are all building power bases, recruiting armies and getting ready to fight for the throne when it falls vacant. Which I do not need to say is useful for us. Those Crown Princes tend to hate and distrust each other. Sibling rivalry, with armies at their disposal. But if one thing can unite them all, it's an attack on one of them – _from outside_.2 **(2)** One thing for Princess Ruth to dispose of her half-sister Princess Akima. That's understood. That's accepted. But another country launching an attack on Princess Ruth. They'll all close ranks and realisethat together, they command sixty thousand spears. Which could very easily end up pointing at the place they consider the attack came from. That rather concerns me."

"I'll put the Slew on alert, sir." Dreyer said, grasping what he thought was the point. "All leave cancelled. Step up recce patrols. Permission to recall selected reservists?"

Various cabinet ministers winced. They had an idea what Dreyer meant by _selected reservists_.

Van der Graaf shook his head.

"Last resort, Crowbar." he said. "Warn the people you have in mind, but do bear in mind the grape harvest is due soon. Two of the people you're thinking about have got a crop to bring in. And... recce patrols. Do _not_ allow them to cross any borders, for now? Especially since Patrician Vetinari has respectfully advised us he is going to be _monitoring_ the situation. And has offered his services as a third-party arbitrer. He has also asked, with polite interest, about progress in building the new Rail Way lines."

The room fell silent. If Ankh-Morpork pulled its finance out of the Rail Ways it would be a blow to national prestige. Rimwards Howondaland wanted the technology. If only as a speedy means of moving large numbers of soldiers around from one threatened border to another. And as van der Graaf had reminded them, lots of crops were due to be harvested. It wouldn't _just_ be two farmers in Bittersfontein who would be inconvenienced in the event of a call-up of Army reservists.

"It's got to be the Muntabians." said the Interior Minister. "They're sore at being beaten last time, and they threatened to put this woman's head on a pike, as she did most of the beating. What's the betting they sent the killer?"

"That's what Vetinari seems to suspect." Van der Graaf said. "Fortunately to get at each other they'd have to fight the Tezuman first. Which is why Vetinari put them there. But a sixty thousand strong Zulu army, united, and itching to fight _somebody_..."

The room considered this awful frightening prospect.

Pieter van der Graaf silently considered the other channels at his disposal. He was having lunch with Julian and Pieter Retief later and could privately discuss a few things. Urgent things.

Crowbar Dreyer let out a relieved breath. Could have been worse.

 _ **In the Zulu Empire, at the Lioness's Den:**_

"One of us does what's needed in this hospital." Irena Politek said. "Helps out with the Igors. The other attends on Ruth. So one of us is there for the birthing."

She rummaged for a coin, then flipped it.

"Heads or tails?"

"Tails." said Sophie Rawlinson.

Irena uncovered the coin. It was tails.

"Off you go, then." Irena said. "If nothing's happened after six hours, we swap over and I take watch on Ruth. You know. Princess. Wife of a powerful general. Daughter of an absolute monarch. We know it's going to be a son. If Ruth's half the woman I think she is, that son's going to end up as Paramount King one day. Depend on it. That's one politically important child."

"So. No pressure, then." Sophie said.

Irena grinned.

"Do the job that's in front of you." she said. "The political stuff is so much stinking _govno_. You've got a first-time mother. Who is in a remote hut outside the kraal, because that's Tradition. Probably some shambolic thing thrown up in a hurry. Birth that mother, _devyuschka_. Get a healthy child into the world. The rest can wait. Nothing to it."

Sophie swallowed nervously and went with a Zulu escort to the Place of Birthing.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

The mews had never been used for a coach and horses. It had become a repository for quite a few years worth of miscellaneous household junk, including battered furniture damaged during a battle in the house that had been moved there, and which nobody had ever got round to moving on. Johanna helped throw an old chair into the skip in the drive, and supervised household staff and goblins in the clear-up.

Her appointed Dwarf builder, a tradesdwarf who had done a lot of interesting bespoke work at the Zoo and who was used to out-of-the-ordinary jobs, was now measuring up.

"More used to doing your cages and enclosures, ma'am." he had remarked. Johanna let the thought cross her mind that this was a specially designed habitat for musically inclined daughters, and definitely _not_ a cage for Famke, then smiled slightly. Mr Thorskjovelsson had shown her samples of the special interior cladding and plasters and had explained something about the acoustic properties of the installation, and that it wasn't going to be _cheap_ , ma'am, but me and the lads can have it done inside a month.

They'd agreed a price, and the musical studio was beginning to emerge. Johanna had stipulated it absolutely _had_ to be properly soundproofed. There would be _drums_ in there.

The dwarf had understood completely.

"Got a musically inclined daughter myself, ma'am." he had said. "She plays the krumpelhorn. Hell of a noise."

He shook his head. From above, there came the sound of Bekki trying to get better at a bowed bass. She was getting better at it. Slowly.

"And you've got three musical girls. Looks like this is going to be a bit of a garage band."

* * *

Pegasii had been flying back and forth between Ankh-Morpork, Howondaland and other destinations far more frequently than usual. Vetinari thought it important that Heads of Government in various nations were kept immediately informed and that their Ambassadors in the city had every opportunity to communicate swiftly and effectively. Specifically, to communicate Vetinari's reflective and considered observations on how a certain situation was unfolding.

Vetinari had heard of world leaders in other places who let their every, immediate, instant, thought on situations be made publicly known in the form of short pithy sound-bites of less than a hundred and forty characters. He shook his head and wondered how people like that got into positions of power. Even though keeping it short and relevant was a useful discipline, he had to concede. But just because he had a practically instantaneous means of communication available to him, it certainly didn't mean it had to be _public_ nor did it have to be _immediate_.

Otherwise it was just _twittering_. Not just meaningless sound, but conveying to the world how intellectually confused you could get.

He sighed at the follies of the world, then returned to reading a treatise on the Nagas and other were-creatures of Ghat and Muntab. He made a note to call in Captain Angua of the Watch for a chat. One of her jobs was monitoring were activity in the city, after all. He also reflected that a word with the priests at the Ghatian temple off Gods Street might also be useful.

"An _ashram_ , sir." Rufus Drumknott said, helpfully. ""The Ghatian word for a temple."

Vetinari turned to regard his secretary.

"You know, Drumknott, I never vocalised that thought." he remarked. "You are getting very adept at anticipating my thoughts."

Drumknott preened, slightly.

"Perhaps it comes of working for you for so long." he suggested. "I have also sent a request to the Watch to make Captain von Überwald available for an interview. I hope that wasn't presumptuous, sir."

 _ **Bitterfontein, Rimwards Howondaland.**_

"So I thought you should know." Olga Romanoff said. "I'm just betting the next move is Crowbar Dreyer shouting for you and Horst to saddle up by five minutes ago."

"You'd think he doesn't have other people to shout for." Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen said, crossly. She hugged the two lively toddlers to herself. Mariella had no immediate plans for children of her own, despite a lot of pointed reminders from her mother, but she didn't mind other people's.

"Well, he can bloody wait. We've got a harvest to bring in. Busy time."

Olga shrugged.

"You know how it is. Your Uncle Pieter took a couple of very sharp knives out of the Crowbar's armoury when he fixed it with your Uncle Charles for those two lethal cousins of yours to be sent on indefinite leaves. Job interviews as miliatary attachés, that mean they're no longer active soldiers. The Crowbar can't deny that Piles and the Pink Death should be offered a chance to do something else away from the front line. Round them out as career officers and capitalise on their Assassin skills. You know, the neglected ones like diplomacy and negotiation, the ones that don't involve actually _killing_ people."

" _Inhuming_ people." Mariella corrected, automatically. She hugged Vassily and Valentina and tried to supress an inconvenient maternal urge that was rising. _Is this another dodge of Uncle Pieter's to deprive the Crowbar of another Assassin_ , she wondered. _Expose me to adorable children, to remind me I'm twenty-eight and most Boer women my age have had three or four by now, and for me to get the urge to have one myself?_

Olga shrugged.

"Whatever. Anyway, that's what's happened to Ruth. And it's fired up an almighty crisis. The Zulus want to make a gesture to avenge the insult caused by an attempt on the life of the Paramount's most favoured daughter. _Wash the spears_ , as they put it. They think your lot are responsible."

" _Our_ lot." Mariella reminded her. "You became one of us when you married Eddie."

"Only conditionally. That _strandpiel_ thing again. By marriage. And I've got a home in Pratoria. Which I really don't want sixty thousand Zulus and a battle rolling over. That new suburb they want to name after your big sister, as they think a notable Smith-Rhodes should have a place named after her. Family tradition."

Mariella grinned. She snuggled two of her favourite children – nice of Olga to bring them with her to see their almost-an-auntie – and contemplated the new town which could end up being called JohannaSmith-Rhodesburg. **(3)**

"Does she know, yet?" she asked, interested. Olga grinned a quiet grin.

"She _will_. When I tell her. I've got a couple more calls to do yet. Thanks for taking the kids, by the way. Appreciated. Anyway. I have to fly to the Zulu Empire. They don't let me do that much these days because of Diplomacy, and those delightful people at BOSS shout a lot about a citizen crossing the closed border at will. The Zulus don't like it much because of one of the passports I carry. But my employer is still Lord Vetinari and he's pointed out, in his usual firm way, that Captain Romanoff works for _him_ and she goes where he directs. So the other reason I'm here, Mariella. You might want to put a personal message in? Strictly unofficially?"

Mariella grinned. "Got it being set up in the kitchen." She turned to the children, who were looking expectant. "Yes, you _can_ have some grapes, but not many. You don't want bad tummies."

She dislodged Valentina and Vassily and stood up. "Give me ten minutes to write a note and a couple of cards." she said. "Oh, and when you fly back from Ankh-Morpork. Tell me how my sister takes the news they're naming a town after her? Especially the look on her face when she realises?"

Olga grinned. It was something she was looking forward to. Flying or the Service was hard work on top of all the other things that made her life busy, but being first with the news had its little perks.

 _ **In the Zulu Empire, at the Lioness's Den:**_

Sissi N'Kima tried not to groan. Waking up had been something she wished she hadn't done, as she surfaced through a sea of pain. But Matron Igorina had been there, to quietly explain she had quite a lot of broken bones in various inconvenient places including a neck fracture that could have been _seriously_ inconvenient. As well as other damage. She, Igorina, had restored everything but it would still be a few weeks before she was right again, there'd be an Igor here to supervise her recovery, just _do as you're told_ while it's all knitting together again.

Sissi had accepted she was in a neck collar and some sort of head brace, and had tentatively twitched fingers and toes to see if everything still worked. She was aware of the broad-shouldered Witch who was apparently running things here and bullying people into keeping things _clean_ and _orderly_. And of Irena, who was doing what she could and letting Sophie get on with everyday management, stepping into the hospital matron role as if she'd been born to it. The two witches seemed to have taken the place over, Sophie thought, distantly. Well. Witches. You expected that.

Irena and Igorina had briefed her on current events. Ruth was in the birthing place – don't fret, it's well guarded – and that other bright young woman's covering your jobs till you're better. Just accept you're out of it at the moment. Igorina had administered an injection of some kind, and Sissi gratefully floated off into Happyland.

Sophie was escorted to the birthing place by quite a lot of women warriors. Some of the male soldiers had started out with them, but had only gone so far, halting at a nod and a lot of meaningful glares from the women. The men had stopped some way short and appeared very respectful of a certain protocol.

Sophie was escorted through a ring of _lots_ of the women soldiers who were surrounding a small, unremarkable, and very new hut surrounded by its own wall of wicker and bushwood in the Zulu style. Chakkie N'Golante, the woman who had taken over Sissi's duties as Personal Assistant To the Princess, met her at the gate.

"She's expecting you." Chakkie said. "You'd better come in."

Sophie ducked her head low enough to allow the pointy hat to pass, and went in.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Bekki had heard the first news of events in Howondaland. It sounded dreadful. Mum had shrugged and said "Ag, you fight ten times harder when there's a baby on the way. Lots more to fight for. It isn't just _you_ any more. So there's something Ruth's got in common with me. Somebody trying to kill her when the child's due."

Johanna looked speculatively at Bekki.

"That last fight brought the baby on a week or two early." She remarked. "I would not be surprised if the same happens to Ruth, like it did to me. Ag, Irena's going to keep us informed. We'll know soon."

They discussed the previous night's business with Ruth, their Ruth, for a while. Johanna made a remark about it being odd these things hasppened to two people called Ruth at practically the same time. The one being named after the other.

"Not so odd, mum." Bekki said. "That _Daquirmia_ thing, for instance. Dad could have bitten his own tongue off when he realised."

"Saves me ripping it out." her mother replied. She grinned. "Ag. We can all get it wrong. If I've got it correct, those creatures wanted an artist they could use. A mind they could work with. To get their images made real in this world and give them a permanent doorway into people's heads. So they found Ruth. And the conditions were right. Clever. Your father thinks they're not capable of original thinking and they'll keep doing the same stupid thing over and over again and be beaten every time."

She shook her head.

" _Vorbei_. _One_ of them's obviously learnt. Your father should note that well."

"We got them all, though." Bekki said. "Between Ruth and Johanna and me."

Her mother looked doubtful.

"Might not matter. Ponder and your grandfather think they've got a hive-mind. You might kill a few individuals, but their experience goes into a collective for the rest. Anyway. That's for next time they select a young witch or wizard to menace. You might want to tell Mistress Aching and Mrs Ogg when you see them next?"

Her mother smiled.

"I've told your cousin to write an account for the Guild." she said. "We take these things seriously _too_ , and any battle involving an Assassin is something the Guild likes to hear about. Anywhere, against whoever. I want to get it to the Dark Council, with witness confirmation from Ponder that it happened as she described it. I really think your cousin could land the Teatime Prize for this. No money, just prestige, and it goes to Raven House."

"And if Ruth goes to the Guild School..." Bekki said, slowly.

Her mother smiled.

"It won't hurt her application. I'm wondering if she _does_ have what it takes. After last night. Shame she's not eligible for the Teatime Prize herself, after the inhumation strategy she devised."

Ruth had gone to school as usual with no apparent ill-effects. There would be a family discussion later; her parents had decided it was most important Ruth went straight to bed and true sleep. Bekki had slept over in her room for reassurance and just to be sure. She knew Dad wanted a long talk with her, which would happen once he was back form work. Young Johanna was over at the Embassy for her interview with the Ambassador. Bekki suspected that unless she really screwed up the interview, she would now be living in Ankh-Morpork again for at least a year. It sounded like the sort of thing Uncle Charles would have a hand in, for one thing. And apparently Emma was coming over too, later.

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School.**_

Wednesday afternoon was Sports Day. It was traditional. After lunch, the day was given over to sporting and phyical pursuits of all sorts. Many teachers who were excused sporting duties or who could wangle something else to do tended to see it as a welcome afternoon off. The pupils had no such get-out clause and went where they were directed. If they had particular prowess or represented a Guild team, they got team practice. Other things which were considered to be acceptable forms of physical exercise were permitted, too.

Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons found herself at the donjon of the Agatean Studies Centre, wearing a white gi, being schooled in Martial Arts by Miss Pretty Butterfly. So long as you obeyed the sensei absolutely and could take the discipline, it was really good fun. And learning new ways to fight was a big incentive too. Famke itched to be allowed access to some of those cool-looking weapons. But she'd been sent here to something that specifically and explicitly was not to do with weapon-like objects, for now. Her sports teachers had realised that hockey and lacrosse, field sports involving giving somebody like Famke a long heavy stick to wield, might not be all that prudent an idea. Representations had been made, especially as the Other Thing had been vetoed, and she had been sent to Koukouchou-sama for her Wednesdays. Which was in the warm and dry and good exercise.

Famke sighed as she flowed through the moves. She'd been really upset that Uncle Danie's bright idea for her had been vetoed by everybody. Mum had been _emphatic_. As had the Rules Committee of fifteen a side, that had pointed to the rule that said "no mixed-sex teams." Lord Downey himself had said "This is not seemly. Absolutely not." Auntie Heidi had said "Of all the stupid ideas, Danie!"

Famke sighed. Uncle Danie had suggested that if she styled her hair short and stuffed rolled-up socks in the right place, she'd pass for a boy, and he could get her into one of the youth sides the Bokkies ran as a scrum-half, as she had _potential_. She'd been all for it. Then people had started objecting...

Famke wondered how soon there'd be womens' teams. It wasn't fair. There were womens' teams in eleven-a-side foot-the-ball, after all, so why not fifteen-a-side?

 _Still, something for the future... right now there were interestingly potentially violent things like karate and aikido, and the one with the wooden swords..._

 _ **In the Zulu Empire, at the Lioness's Den:**_

Sophie knelt next to Ruth, who was lying on blankets on the earthen floor of the hut. A wizened old Zulu woman was tending to pots over a fire that were throwing nameless smells into the air. Sophie sniffed. Not _bad_ smells, and she could almost identify some of the ingredients. Just... overpowering...

The old woman had grinned at Sophie as she came in, and was blinknig as her eyes adjusted to reduced light. Then Witch senses had kicked in and she'd realised. She automatically made the witch bow – not to Ruth, but to the old woman, who had appraised Sophie with knowing eyes, and then nodded, in acceptance.

"She's an _isangoma_." Ruth had explained. "The Witch-Finders don't approve. She's the sort of person they're tasked with actually _finding,_ after all."

Sophie realised. The thing where men with magic want it all for themselves and aren't prepared to share it with women.

"I still want you here, though. For one thing she's over ninety and her attention wanders a bit."

Sophie watched Ruth breathing deeply and regularly and riding the discomfort of the contractions.

"how many birthings have you done?" she asked.

Sophie frowned as she tallied.

"High forties, not nearly fifty." she replied.

"Impressive." She said. "you're not even sixteen yet?"

"Including a tricky caesarean. Although that was more observing while somebody else did it."

Ruth looked up at her.

"It can get a bit sticky if the foal's presenting wrongly. You know, where you have to reach inside the mare and grab a hoof and pull..."

There was a silence. The old woman seemed to snigger.

Ruth looked up at the young witch.

"Shall we start again, Sophie?" she asked, patiently. "How many _human_ birthings have you done?"

"One." Sophie said, reluctantly. Ruth nodded.

"And did the mother and the baby come out okay?"

"Oh yes. Both are thriving."

Ruth smiled.

"Have you lost any foals?"

"No."

Ruth N'Kweze smiled again.

"One hundred percent success, then. I _like_ those odds. Shall we get on with it?"

Several hours later, a son was born.

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 **(1)** Igors challenged apartheid in a novel and unforeseen way. As long as a body part worked, they didn't ask about where it came from. Some examples of mixed-race people were walking around Rimwards Howondaland who had not actually _begun_ as mixed-race. BOSS had then stepped in and demanded safeguards, Such Igors as remained in Rimwards Howondaland after the first deportations now worked under strict supervision. The Igors put up with this as, well, everywhere needed Igors. It was just the people in this country had some damn silly ideas. They tended to compromise: any external or cosmetic work was matched according to skin colour. They just weren't so careful about the bits that went inside, as, well, it'th a liver, ithn't it? They're all a thort of brown colour.

 **(2)** The Zulu Royal House had a lot in common with the Ogg family, only with more sharp pointy things.

 **(3)** you're ahead of me here. It would get shortened, inevitably, to _Johannasburg,_ and then laconic Vondalaanders would cut it even further to simply _Joburg_.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.**_

Zulu traditional birthing customs: had to dig for this.

Umtula: plant root smeared on the umbilical cord to encourage separation; the cord cannot be cut with a metal knife; the idea of the child's body being anointed with natural pigments shortly after birth; collection and ritual burial of the placenta and umbilicus in a sacred place. No men allowed in the birthing place – is this a fact or a myth?

 **NHLAKANIPHO** f Zulu  
Feminine Zulu given name derived from _inhlakanipho_ meaning "wisdom".


	42. Leer en Wilg

_**Strandpiel 42**_

 _ **Leer en Wilg – leather and willow**_

 _ **Krieketwedstryd – the cricket match**_

 _ **And we're back after the last cliff-hanger resolved itself. As before – version one, still trying hard to resolve the story and move it along but there is so much ground to cover and so many sub-plots to tie up. For an interlude in the tale, I wondered how to do that strange rite of Englishness, cricket, in a Discworld context. Other ideas intruded. British readers will see the homage to BBC Radio's "Test Match Special", which took over an entire radio channel's output in the summer months and whose commentators, Henry Blofield and Brian Johnston, were probably the most eccentric sporting commentators to be found anywhere in the world. Cricket being a sport to appreciate at leisure, not for them the hyperbolic frenzy of football, American football or sometimes rugby. In a game lasting as long as summer daylight did, they could talk about anything and anything when there really wasn't much going on at the wicket. And did. Generally about the cakes and sandwiches, often sent by appeciative listeners.**_

 _ **And from Blowers and Johnston I started giving creative thought as to how the Discworld might evolve sound radio, or something not unlike. And the sort of laterally creative mind constantly bombarded by inspiration particles that could come up with the idea. Maybe she might get as far as music radio...**_

 _ **Again - version one. And no footnotes - yet...  
**_

 _ **Now read on.**_

 _ **The Lords' Crockett Ground, Ankh-Morpork. Saturday.**_

Things had settled down a little bit since the dramas of Tuesday night. Bekki and her father had settled down for that long talk with Ruth and assured themselves that she hadn't been traumatised by her fight in the Dungeon Dimensions. Their most obvious fear had been dispelled when they realised Ruth was completely temperamentally opposed to burning _any_ artwork, least of all her own. She had only burnt her drawings of the Dungeon Dimension Things because that had been the right thing to do, and she had wept afterwards – not because she'd killed the Things, but because she had been _destroying Art_. Even at eight, she had strong opinions about this.

"Besides, Daddy." Ruth had said. She had frowned, as if working something out in her head. "When you start burning pictures and books and things because you don't like what they are and what they show people. Don't the BOSS do that in the Other Country? I don't want to join the BOSS, daddy. They aren't nice people. And when you burn books and pictures. They used to burn witches, didn't they? Because of books they had that frightened people. And if you burnt a book Bekki owns because you don't like what it tells you, you want to burn Bekki because she's dangerous too."

Ruth had hugged her big sister.

"I get it." Bekki had said, wondering why her thought processes lagged behind her baby sister's. Not for the first time in her life and probably not the last. "Once you start burning books, you end up burning _people_."

"And I don't want to burn people." Ruth said. "Daddy, I know it worked in that place. Setting fire to the picture set fire to the Thing in the picture too. I'm not sure if it would work here in the real world and I don't ever want to _try_."

Ponder Stibbons relaxed. He'd had the lingering fear his daughter might try pyrotechnic sympathetic magic here, if anyone really annoyed her. Sketch a picture, set light to it... he'd assured her that he and Mummy forgave her for playing with matches as sometimes you _had_ to start a fire, but only this once, Ruth.

Ponder had reflected on the other thing. Once, the children in her class at school had been doing a basic maths lesson, learning how to draw circles with compasses and pencils. The class bully had thought it would be a huge laugh to tug the paper away, or deliberately nudge Ruth's shoulder, just as she completed a circle. After all, it was only soft stupid Ruth, the weird kid.

According to witnesses, Ruth had mildly said "Don't do that again, please."

The bully had sniggered, and done it again. Ruth had calmly collected her paper, repeated "Don't do it again, please." and tried to draw another circle.

The bully had tried to do it again. According to the class teacher, who _said_ she was poised to intervene at this point, Ruth, without looking around, had stabbed down with the compasses, and pinned the bully's hand to the desk-top.

"I _told_ you not to do that." Ruth had said. "But you wouldn't listen, would you?"

"It was a mercy the long sharp point only went through the loose skin between the tops of the fingers." the teacher had said, when summoned to Mother Superior's office where Ponder and Johanna had been called to attend the incident report. "But it went into the desk right up to the hilt. It took some pulling out. You just wouldn't _expect_ it of a quiet girl like Ruth."

Mother Superior had been here before with the older Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons girls. _Both_ of them. She had looked at Johanna, who just to make the point had dressed in formal Assassin black. Then she had looked back at her teacher.

"Yes. Ruth having an unexpected proficiency with long sharp weapon-like objects." she had said. " _Wholly_ unexpected. Who could have thought it?"

The other girl had been taken to the Lady Sybil for stitching. Ruth had been summoned to Mother's office and The Parents Had Been Called For. Johanna glared at the other parents, who had been _vocal_. Then they belatedly realised what Assassin black _meant_. And quietened down.

It had all blown over. Johanna and Ponder had paid the other girl's medical costs, Johanna saying this was _not_ an admission her daughter had been in the wrong, you understand. But we Assassins have a saying – noblesse oblige. I'm also prepared to pay any other medical expenses that may prove necessary in the future. As a goodwill thing, you understand. Afterwards.

Ruth had been suspended from school for a week. She had spent the time drawing, painting, reading and making music. Johanna had had the first speculative thoughts that her youngest daughter might thrive at the Assassins' School, after all.

And the family of the other girl had noticed in the evenings that a group of girl pupils from the Assassins' Guild School would walk past the house. In a manner that was not ostensibly threatening at all. But the ringleader of the Assassins, who was red-haired and about twelve, had a tendency to _look_ at the daughter who had menaced Ruth and say apparently sympathetic friendly things like "Sorry about your right hand. Hope it gets a chance to heal."

Johanna had put the word out to Famke to stop doing that.

* * *

And today, Ruth had accompanied her older sister to the crockett ground. Mum had insisted. To get her out into the fresh air, mum had said.

Bekki shifted position on the wooden bleacher seat. She'd tried to pick a spot likely to have most shade as they'd be here for a while. She frowned. She wasn't completely sure why she was here. There were lots of far better things she could be doing with a free Saturday. Still, she had to admit it was pleasant and restful. A huge open green space with a ridiculously small playing area in the middle of it. No wonder this ground had been built out in New Ankh where space wasn't at a premium. She counted thirteen men – well, older boys, this was a school match – dressed in white, doing not very much that she could see. And two referees – well, they were called umpires – nominally Wizards for some reason, in white robes, with white pointy hats, overseeing whatever arcane rules the game was played to.

Periodically a red ball enountered a bat and went spinning off somewhere. Some of the white-clad figures on the edges, the ones nearest to, went racing after it to relay it back to the player charged with thorwing the ball. Sometimes the two in the middle with bats would change ends, sometimes more than once, sometimes not at all. Numbers changed on the scoreboard accpording to no recognisable logic. Every so often there was a cry of "HOWZAT?" and an appeal to the wizards, who would raise a variable number of fingers and pronounce "Out!" or "Not Out!" If ruled Out, one of the batsmen would sigh, shoulder his bat, and troop over to the pavilion, to applause from the crowd. A new batsman would appear to replace him.

Bekki found it as bewildering as trying to understand opera. She wondered if somebody had ever written an opera about crockett – recursively and exponentially bewildering to the uninintiated.

She looked over to Ruth. Her sister had brought a satchel with her, containing art pads, pencils, rubbers and other things. She was sketching, and had said, men dressed in white on a green field on a sunny day. Contrasts. You _had_ to draw it, Bekki.

Ruth's art was drawing more attention from spectators around them than the game was. People were saying things like "Oh, I say!" and She's good, isn't she?"

It wasn't all they'd bought with them. Mum had sent them in a taxi-cab with the other stuff. Dorothea had helped – in fact done most of it – but Bekki had considered it was important for her to make at least _some_ of the sandwiches herself and to try to ice _one_ of the cakes.

"It's a Guild side. You're there to support them. I understand this sort of thing is _expected_." Mum had said. "Mention it's from me, would you?"

Again, Bekki wondered exactly why she was doing this. It all felt rather like pandering to expectations...

They'd arrived at The Lords. Bekki had fumbled for the admission money to buy tickets, but the attendent at the turnstile had seen both were carrying large platters of covered sandwiches and cakes.

"You're with one of the teams, miss? You must be. Go in through that little door over to the right there, do you see it?"

Bekki had learnt something vital about crockett. Carrying cakes and sandwiches and being mistaken for a wife or girlfriend of a player – hah! – got you in for free. Plus guest.

They'd been directed to put the stuff on the table, miss, for later, and you can go and find a seat, anywhere you like.

And now she was watching the game, trying to fathom it out. The Assassins' Guild School First Eleven against Hugglestones' Academy First Eleven. A prestige match, apparently, between two schools with a long crocketting history. It had drawn a few hundred people, possibly slightly shy of a thousand.

And there were other things.

A genial old buffer of a man with one of the new amplifying megaphones periodically said things like

"That's the Honourable Richard Swivelly, solid second-order batsman, out for seventeen runs, bowled by J.P.F. Richmal-Crompton and caught by Imrah Khan, now being replaced by The Very Honourable Kelvin Tatton-Park, going in to bat for Hugglestones."

Bwkki noted the old buffer who was _commentating_ seemed to forget the amplifying megaphone was still on. The rambling discursions betweeen the two old men were therefore audible to a large part of the ground. Their voices carried. Somehow it sounded _right_. Not obstrusive at all.

"Lots of useful colonial types in the Assassins' team, Blowers."

"Couldn't agree with you more, Johnners, old chap. Chap from Klatchistan, young Imrah Khan, damn useful wicket-keeper, safe hands. And talking _colonial_ , I hear those odd-looking cakes that appeared in the pavilion, one of these young fellows must have got a young lady who knows what's expected of her, apparently they're called _cake-sisters_. From Howondaland, by all accounts, and said to be damn fine pastries."

" _Koeksisters_." Bekki said, automatically. They'd taken _ages_ to bake.

"And speaking of colonials, the Assassins are bringing in a new bowler. Probably might have to do with those cakes, Blowers. Young fellow called Andrew van der Pris, is that right? Odd to see those chaps playing something other than fifteen-a-side, but by all accounts, bit of a springbok..."

"Andrijs duPris", Bekki corrected them again. She wondered about the Morporkian assumption that all Vondalaans names were _van something_ or _van der otherthing._ Admittedly that was right about half the time. But not _everybody_ was a van. Or a van der.

She watched Ampie intently. Tallish, well-shaped, moved nicely, looked good in the white, which she noted had a black trim to it, tossing the little red ball idly into the air and catching it again as he looked down the close-cropped green strip at a batsman taking guard...

"Hey, big sister."

Bekki jumped as her sister Famke leapt into the seat next to them.

"Hey, baby sister!"

Ruth looked up and spared a nod. Then she went back to her drawing.

"Hi, Famke." Bekki said. "Out on parole?"

"Just finished lessons." Famke said. "I heard you were going to be here, thought I'd join you."

Famke squealed with delight and elbowed Bekki in the ribs.

"Oooh. _Your boyfriend's bowling_!"

Bekki took a deep breath. Famke wasn't here for the crockett, then. She'd turned up to extract Little Sister Privileges and to get annoying and giggly.

"And I just _bet_ that's not approved walking-out uniform." Bekki said.

Assassin schoolgirls were permitted to wear trousers and tunics, in regulation black, for lessons that demanded free physical movement. But they still had to wear the full gymslip skirt for walking out in the city.

Famke grinned and opened her bag.

"I _was_ wearing this when I went out of the Guild." she said. "Proper clothes underneath. Ditched the dress as soon as I could. _And_ the hat."

Bekki watched as Ampie made his run-up. _Fluid, graceful, attractive, nice to watch..._ then his arm swung and the red ball was launched, incredibly swiftly. The batsman managed to clip it away off the side of his bat; it bounced, and one of the fielders stopped it easily. Nobody else moved much.

She watched the game, trying to ignore one sister shifting and fidgeting with boredom and the other intent on adding more detail to her drawing. Occassionally Ruth paused to sharpen her green colouring pencils.

"You'd think he could have hit those sticks with the ball at least _once_." Famke observed, after a while. "He must have thrown that ball about twenty times by now."

There was cheering and applause as the batsman hit the ball squarely and sent it soaring.

"Is this as exciting as it _gets_?" Famke said.

"Nobody _forced_ you to come." Bekki said.

"You're only here because your _boyfriend_ is. Admit it, Bekki, you find it as boring as I do!"

"Shut up and watch." Bekki said.

And then Ampie surprised everybody.

"Oh, I say, Johnners! That was a _superbly_ executed googlie off the nearside pad. The Howondalandian lad certainly put some off-spin on the old ball there! That's F.J.R. Coverdale, cleanly bowled out there by mr Andrew van der Pris of the Assassins. And didn't those bails _fly_!"

Famke, Bekki was pleased to note, had shut up. Ampie had just delivered a ball that somehow seemed to curve in the air and go _behind_ the defending batsman, to smash the three upright sticks apart and send the two little ones balanced on top spinning away over the head of the player crouching behind them. Judging by the applause this was the sort of thing crockett fans came to see and probably scored some sort of maximum points. The player Bekki divined was F.J.R. Coverdale of Hugglestones' Academy shook hands with Ampie, exchanged a few words, then walked back to the pavilion. Another batsman was coming out to replace them as Ampie received the congratulations of his team-mates.

"It took him _long_ enough." Famke said.

"Shut up." Bekki replied.

"Ideal boyfriend for you, then. The slow and steady type."

Ampie managed it again, shortly afterwards, although not as spectacularly as the previous time.

"Just caught the offside stump there, Blowers. With a nice Agatean on the ball. Only gave it a little kiss on the cheek in passing, but that's enough to get the chap bowled out."

"Indeed, Johnners, indeed. R.H.M. Blackmore of Hugglestones, bowled out for seven by the colonial chap from Howondaland, young van Pris. Wasn't there a Colonel Blackmore, with Venturi's Apple-Pickers, got himself t _erminally_ bowled out by one of those Boer chaps at the battle of Laing's Neck in the Boor War? Wonder if they're related?"

"History repeating itself, Blowers. Who knows? By the way, just heard there's a smashing vanilla sponge cake on the table in the pavilion now and some of those delicate cucumber sandwiches the ladies always seem to put out, goodness knows why as nobody ever eats them..."

"Gods bless the ladies, Johnners. Where would we be without them? Well, the lad's one short of a hat-trick, and coming in to bat now is Mr R.P.D. Glover-Paice of Hugglestones..."

Ruth looked up and frowned, registering the way the Moebius commentary was perfectly audible around the ground.

"These sound systems where imps who can imitate your voice repeat what you're saying, but lots louder." she said. "Then they speak it down a trumpet tube to make it louder still."

Ruth paused, as if thinking something out. Famke and Bekki listened encouragingly.

"I'm wondering if there might be a way to send it over really long distances." She said. "You know. This event happens here. But people can listen to it in Sto Kerrig or Pseudopolis".

Famke considered.

"You'd need a really big trumpet." she said. "Maybe lots of imps, Spaced out at intervals to relay what the last imp said."

"Yes, but we've got the Clacks for that." Bekki said.

Ruth shook her head.

"You can only send a written copy in words on the Clacks. Somebody types it in at this end. Somebody else types it back into words on paper at the other. What I want to do is send the actual _sounds_. So people can _listen_."

Bekki and Famke looked at her with polite loving-big-sister bafflement.

"Err – how?" Bekki asked.

Ruth smiled nervously.

"I haven't worked it out yet." She said. "But the imps in those magnifying trumpets here what you say. They imitate your voice perfectly and repeat it, only louder, so everyone can hear. I was thinking. If you can break words and still pictures down into code and send them over the clacks and somebody makes them into the same words and pictures at the other end, however far away it is. It should be possible to do that with _sounds_ , too."

"Sending sounds over the clacks?" Bekki asked.

"I can't see exactly how yet." Ruth admitted. "Maybe those imps that have pefect hearing and can imitate voices perfectly are the way it will work. I want to think about how the Clacks work, and what codes it will need. Maybe one imp here hears the sounds. It becomes clacks code. It gets sent. The imp at the other end helps decode the clacks and then repeats the sound."

Bekki thought about it, quickly and furiously.

"Talk to Dad." she said. "About the technomancy. Then talk to Mum. About finance. And best we talk about this sort of thing in private, baby."

"I could call it..." Ruth thought, screwing her face up in concentration, "Radiated sound, or something."

"Shorten it. Make it snappier." Famke said. "Something like... _Radia_."

"Maybe I could get imps who can transmit _music_." Ruth speculated. "I want to think about this."

"But only where _we_ can talk about it." Bekki said, relieved a neighbouring crockett fan had laughed indulgently, and said something patronising about what _ideas_ children can get into their heads. She turned on her witch senses. _No. Nobody who heard is taking her seriously. But I just bet Ruth comes up with a working idea, now it's grabbed her attention, she'll work at it until she does. Best talk to Mum and Dad. Mum knows Adora Belle Dearheart at the clacks. And her husband._

The warm summer afternoon went on. Bekki discerned a change in intent and tempo in the crockett game. She wasn't sure what it was, but...

"And that's it, Johnners. Hugglestones, all out for a hundred and thirty-two. That's the target the Assassins have to beat in their innings."

"Yes indeed, Blowers. The Assassins have to inhume a score of a hundred and thirty-two all out. And this is a bowler's wicket."

"Maybe they'll break the back of it before tea, Johnners. And some delighful cake to look forward to in the pavilion. A fine selection indeed."

"Oh, It's like foot-the-ball. They change ends at half-time." Famke said, having worked it out.

They watched the first few Assassin batsmen come and go. A Apparently a bowler's wicket meant it was easier to get batsmen out and not so easy for batsmen to score runs. A neighbour to the girls kindly tried to explain this to them at great length. Ruth retreated into her sketching and colouring. Famke grimaced and bekki politely listened to the drone.

Nobody on the Assassin team scored more than a dozen each before being ruled Out. Ampie was the fifth man in. Famke gleefully nudged Bekki. He did better than most, scoring thirty-seven before being caught out. Apparently if a fielder could catch the ball you batted without it hitting the ground first, you were Out.

Rather then go to the pavilion, Ampie walked over to where the girls were sitting, slightly hindered by the big clumsy leg-pads.

"Thank you for coming." he said. "All three of you, I notice."

"Yes." Bekki replied. "I get chaperones. Stop giggling, Famke!"

 _Damn. He's quite good-looking, all in white..._

Hei, mister Ampie." Ruth said, politely.

"So this Crockett thing, then. What's it _for_?" Famke demanded. Bekki winced. _At least we're talking in Vondalaans._ Ampie smiled at her, taking no offence.

"You might as well ask what fifteen-a-side is for." he said. "Miss Famke? Catch."

Ampie rummaged in a pocket. Suddenly a crockett ball was arcing up in the air. Famke caught it easily. She weighed it in a hand, as if surprised by its weight and hardness.

"When I'm bowling, I never let the batsman I'm bowling to ever forget this is a small and very hard, quite heavy, object travelling at great speed." Ampie said. "It can be very disconcerting when it misses your face by a few inches. It tends to put batsmen off their stroke."

"So crockett is a kind of war?" Famke asked. She tossed the ball up and caught it easily in her other hand. "One of these could really _hurt_ somebody."

" _Now_ you're getting it." Ampie said. "Well, my part in the game is now finished. If you wish, miss Famke, I could show you how to bowl. The practice nets are nearby to here. Coming?"

"My drawings are finished." Ruth said, and closed her pad. She methodically tidied things into her backpack and stood up.

Bekki was not surprised that Famke got the hang of it so swiftly. Under Ampie's tuition, she soon learnt to deliver a crockett ball with remarkable and pinpoint accuracy, hitting the wicket practically every time. Bekki marvelled at her sister's aptitude for pinpoint destruction of a target. But she also realised Famke was warming to him, as she tended to warm to people who taught her exciting new skills that could be transferred to creative applied violence. She grinned. Without expending too much effort, Ampie now had the other sister, the irksome one, on side.

"Some of Mum's Devices are designed to be thrown." Famke remarked. "Hey, I wonder if any of them are round like this?"

Bekki winced. Famke and hand-grenades was _exactly_ what the world needed. She hoped their mother thought so, too.

"Of course, it gets more difficult if a batsman is standing in the way, defending the wicket." Ampie remarked. He walked down the length of the practice range and took position. Bekki moved close to her sister.

"Do _not_ injure him." Bekki said, glaring at her. Famke adopted a hurt look.

"Course I won't, Beccs! I'm actually glad I came now. Besides, he's wearing all that protective padding!"

Bekki sighed, and let them get on with it.

Later there was tea in the pavilion.

* * *

The girls went home to discover Olga Romanoff had arrived on a Pegasus flight from Howondaland. She had news.

"I've taken some of the iconographs to the _**Times**_." she said. "As well as an update on the other thing."

Bekki, Famke and Ruth squealed at the iconographs of Ruth N'Kweze and her little boy. Bekki thought he was utterly adorable. Mum looked quietly pleased.

"What's his name?" Bekki asked.

Olga consulted what Bekki guessed was a press release.

" _Inhlakanipho"_ she said, "Ruth asked Sophie Rawlinson if there was a meaning to her name. Sophie said she thought it was from the Ephebian for "wise person." That's the Zulu version, apparently. But the boy-name version."

Olga smiled slightly. "Apparently you can shorten it to Nipho. Nipho N'Kweze kaCeteshayo. And there's a really long name too."

"Does the Guild know yet?" Mum asked.

"Briefed Joan. The Guild knows." Olga said. "So he's been pencilled in by now, for his year of entry."

Olga paused and smiled.

"Brought mail. There's a note from Mariella. Oh, she also sent over some of the papers from Howondaland. Says there's an interesting article on page four of the Pratoria Star."

Olga smiled slightly to herself. Truly her job had perks.

* * *

Meanwhile in Howondaland, Sissi N'Kima contemplated the fruit basket at her bedside. Grapes predominated, but there was a pineapple in there too. She thought of the Get Well Card she'd received, and smiled slightly. The note inside had said

 _You sent me a fruit basket in hospital once after I'd been crocked up. I never forgot. We have got to run a race again together before we get too old! With love and nearly friendship. M, the Boor-Girl._

 _PS – I heard what happened. Assassins' honour, and almost friendship._ **It wasn't us.** _Please tell R? And congratulate her on her son. Hope mother and son are doing well. M._

* * *

Outside, and downwind, a large cremation pyre burnt with acrid foul smoke. The visiting wizard had been _definite_ about this. Especially as the Naga had been carrying eggs. He thought she probably hadn't laid any on her progress from the coast, as they didn't seem mature enough. But Ruth and Denizulu had detached patrols and sent out messengers to try to back-track her progress across the Empire, and to search carefully. Just to make sure. They were already establishing the route she'd taken from the reports of missing people. Ruth now knew where they'd dissappeared to. Descriptions of the sort of serpent egg they might find had gone with the messengers. These were to be destroyed with silver and fire.

And a Pegasus prepared for take-off from the Zulu Empire. Their jobs were done, after all. Ruth and her son were well, safe and guarded. They'd done the job with regard to artificial insemination, the original reason to send Sophie here. Thern there'd been the battle with the Naga and the need to set up a hospital for the wounded. But after Igoring most of them were out of danger now, and anyway a couple of Igors were staying on. Something about Howondaland attracted them. Ruth, from her own bed, had offered them contracts to stay as medical officers to her troops. Sophie needed to be back here, briefly, in a few days for baby Nipho's Presentation to the people he would be a Prince of. But there was time for a visit home first, and as Irena reminded Sophie, she still had the Witch Trials to prepare for.

"Rosie's at the Watch Station in the Yard." Irena said. "I know Bekki's been looking after them both, but you need to be with your Pegasus. The Pegasii. Or Pegasi. With one "i". Or whatever. You never know with damn Latatian plurals which way it goes."

A farewell party of Lionesses chanted and saluted in Sophie's honour as the Pegasus took off. Sophie watched the kraal shrink and dwindle underneath and then there was the pop and dislocation of Feegle Space. A four-sided triangle said hello to them.

Then they were over Ankh-Morpork. Sophie was no expert, but anyone could recognise landmarks like the Tower of Art and Small Gods from above.

"Apparently they want to make you a honorary Lioness." Irena said, drily. "So you get a spear and a shield and a head-dress. No compulsion to enlist, Ruth said, but she's keen for a Witch or two on the strength."

"As long as I don't have to..." Sophie said. Irena laughed.

Only if you really want to, apparently, _devyushka_. You've seen the sort of bandeau bra thing they wear? Practical. Stylish, too. But if you do leave the top off, wear the pointy hat. Important. So they know you're a Witch. Improperly dressed, otherwise."

The Pegasus flew on.

"Fancy going back to Johanna's? You're a friend of Bekki, so her mother won't mind putting you up. She'll be keen to hear the story."

Irena put in a course for Spa Lane.

"Besides, I want to find out how the other Ruth's little situation is working out. I suspect of the Dungeon Dimensions try anything on, they'll have had the _govno_ beaten out of them by now. Depend on it. with this family."

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit in the pavilion until they're called to bat. A waiting room for ideas.**_

I have an idea, worth developing in fanfic, that there is such a thing as the Rustle Group of top-flight prestigious universities on the Disc. Unseen, Braseneck, Brindisi, perhaps Bugarup. The chasing pack behind could be the Soot-Black-Brick Group - started out as Redbrick, but this is a world dependent on coal-burning. These might have institutions like the Shrimp-Packer Institute of Genua or smaller time-honoured institutions in places like Sto Kerrig, Quirm, Chirm, Sto Helit, et c. And behind them the Clown Colleges - literally so - of the Sorbomme, Muning, et c. And maybe tech and community collleges allowed to rebrand themselves as universities but which are still not much better than local tech colleges - the Owain Money Institute of Higher Education or Pant-Y-Girdl Polytechnic in Llamedos, perhaps. (Yup - I went to one such. NEWI in Wrexham/Flintshire, which today calls itself Pryfysgol Owain Glyndwr/ Glendower University. Its back-history is fascinating and ludicrous enough to be Discworld, but that's a different tale).

 _ **Also discovered Holland has a thriving cricket culture. You wouldn't have thought it. But they do play. The national team, who play in orange, managed to beat England in 2009. Former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean contribute players to the West Indian team and of course you get the cultural links to South African cricket. Odd but true.**_

Thanks to reader CarrieVS – apparently I've been getting the plural form of "pegasus" wrong throughout. Damn, I thought "pegasii" was cool and better than "pegasuses". Ah well… thank you. Correction noted.

Also, if I may pick a nit, "pegasii." One of my pet peeves: the Latin rule for plurals is to replace -us with -i. This can result in -ii if the original word was -ius, which it often does, and -ii is a very distinctively Latin word ending, but it's not always correct. Although I suppose since Pegasus from mythology is a name it doesn't really have a proper plural, and since it's from the Greek, Latin rules needn't apply (I can't honestly say I know the equivalent Greek rule, beyond that the pedantic plural of octopus is octopodes.) But I'm still going to complain.


	43. Ode om vreugde

_**Strandpiel 43**_

Ode tot vreugde – Ode to Joy

 _ **Or**_

 _ **Ode om te geneitschadevreugde – Ode to Schadenfreude**_

 _ **first edit - eliminating typos and altering a couple of detail points noted by reader rga156. thank you. Realising the significance of Thirty Pieces of Silver to Harry Dresden and what this meant in his world - and not wanting to create confusion with a reference not really belonging here, given what that amount of THAT silver means in Dresden's world. An extra level of symbolism and complication that doesn't belong in this tale!  
**_

 _ **And we're back, keeping the momentum going. Ok. Quick recap. The summer hols beckon for students at the AG school. Famke is looking forward to private tuition in her musical speciality. Famke's parents are duly shelling out big dollar on a Concussion Bunker of their very own, with special attention paid to acoustic phenomena preventing sounds from leaking out and making them very unpopular with the neighbours. Also, they're not sure how many spare ear-drums Igorina has on ice.**_

 _ **Ruth is still getting more inspiration particles than she knows what to do with. Her latest concept – for a Clacks that transmits perfect sounds over unlimited distances – may just remain a paper project. Or it may not. Time will tell. She may also reflect that if sounds can be converted into discrete units of clacks coding, then they are also, by implication, preserved for playback later. Her father will have memories of the**_ **last** _ **time this was attempted on the Disc. It was his idea, after all. Ruth's mother will advise her as to the commercial possibilities and introduce her to little words like Patent, Copyright and Royalties.**_

 _ **Bekki is enjoying a bit of an early summer holiday catching up with Family before having to travel back for the Witch Trials. She is deliberately not thinking of the following few weeks of compulsory Watch training.**_

 _ **The other Ruth has now survived twenty-three assassination attempts, the last one of which nearly got through. She is also aware of the fact her newborn son Npiho is a baby boy with a Destiny. And therefore an assassination target in his own right. The child's grandfather will be no help in this, as she will soon discover.**_

 _ **In Howondaland, there are political machinations on the other side of the border. Pieter van der Graaf is industriously trying to foster better relations with the Zulu Empire. His strategy of putting a collar and leash on Crowbar Dreyer is working. So far. Two of Dreyer's most effective agents have now been posted out of his command as diplomatic officers, specially requested by the foreign minister. Both have arrived on the Central Continent to take up new roles, far from any potential battlefield. And one talented reservist has pointed out, somewhat crossly, that first and foremost she and her husband are farmers with a crop to bring in, and that comes first.**_

 _ **Vetinari is also reminding all players in a difficult situation which City has the banks that provide their loans, mortgages, and soforth, and who decides levels of import tax on their products. The Pegasus Service has been working hard to convey his written reflections on current affairs, delivered promptly with a minimum of delay.**_

 _ **A keen musician and capable Crockett player is also learning more about the Family who have, for the moment, granted him guest status.**_

 _ **Now read on.**_

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Johanna Smith-Rhodes put the final touches on a letter to the Burghers of the city of Pratoria. After reflection, she had decided to thank them sincerely for the honour that her nation wanted to bestow on her. She agreed the new town needed a better name than Housing Project 24, something more personalised and which had deep associations with the history and ethos of Rimwards Howondalaland as a nation.

Relising that they were planning to call it JohannaSmith-Rhodesberg was a great honour. She couldn't deny that. At least they weren't putting the recently bestowed Ankh-Morporkian honour of _Dame_ at the front. You had to be thankful for some things.

However, could she, Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, point out that there had been previous women in the family line called Johanna Smith-Rhodes, some of whom had in their time been elevated to the status of national heroines? Johanna van der Kaiboutje Smith-Rhodes, for instance, who had founded the family line, or her daughter Johanna van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes. Johanna felt, very strongly, that they were worthy of recognition too, perhaps even more so as they had been present at the great struggles that saw the birth of our Nation. A new town named after not _one_ Johanna Smith-Rhodes but _all_ of them was something she could happily put her support behind. She realised this might make commemorative statues more of a challenge but she was sure something could be worked out. Please keep her informed.

Johanna sighed and sealed the letter. Olga could fly it back when she went. And the bloody _**Times**_ had got hold of the story. They could have a leaked copy to print and she could talk to Sacharissa Cripslock about family history, or something. Get my way of looking at things in print, so the local papers at home can take it up. Make it real. Maybe Suki can help.

 _Ah well. They'll shorten it to Johannasburg or Joburg or something. Depend on it._

Johanna turned to other matters. Work on the music studio was progressing well. She could start having all the musical instruments moved in there soon. _Better get Guild insurance badges out front where Thieves and so on can see them and be warned off. Musical instruments are expensive._

There was one short Outward Bound course to lead before the end of term. A nice easy summer one, more of a nature trail really, three nights under canvas. Johanna considered. By lucky chance it took a group of students out towards Lancre. Where the Witch Trials were to happen. Johanna smiled. It would do no harm for her students to see Lancre-trained Witches in their own space. And observe and learn lessons useful to the young Assassin. It would also be a nice afternoon out for everyone and hopefully Educative. She decided to mention this to Alice Band, who would be co-leading the trek.

* * *

Eelsewhere, Ponder Stibbons was reviewing homework in Mathematics and Physical Sciences submitted to their respective teachers by his two younger daughters. He took a disbelieving look at the work submitted by Ruth. And winced. In most universes, fathers only get involved when their children are submitting sub-par or unsatisfactory work. Ponder had the opposite problem to deal with.

He looked down at the page again. It was a pre-printed worksheet with fill-in-the-blanks sections.

The printed questions began with _Identify the shape_.

In child-like carefully formed letters underneath, Ruth had diligently written

 _This geometrick form is a circle. A circle is defined as a continouss line drawn so that_ _it connects the locus of all points that are at an equal distacne from a given point (on the plane) called the centre._

For want of something else to do, Ponder circled the three spelling errors. Well, Ruth was only eight. She still had problems with longer words.

The next part had been simply to correctly identify the radius, diameter and circumference. Ruth had gone into a lot of detail here too. She'd even helpfully added arcs, chords, segmentation and tangents and pointed out these were important too in circular geometries. With illustrations and equations for calculating how to precisely define them.

Answering the advanced question about a circle having no more than 360 degrees, which we will be getting on to at a later stage in your teaching, Ruth had politely disagreed and said you _could_ have more than 360 degrees in a circle, but then it begins to overlap itself and move into a third dimension of space and you get a spiral circle. Which can be defined as a moving loci inclined on a helical plane and in theory has no upper limit. This was seen in everyday life in things like spiral staircases and carpenter's screws. And while she, Ruth, wasn't sure of the details and might ask her father, what if you could extend a spiral into fourth and fifth dimensions, say that of Time, and what the maths might look like...

As Mother Superior had pointed out, Ruth's Maths teacher had needed to sit down with a reviving drink and the kindly attention of a friend.

Famke's homework had been even _worse_ , from the point of view of the teacher. Johanna had brought home selected examples and invited him to take a look at this, Ponder. Ponder had looked.

"Stewart Duggan's already beginning to twitch." Johanna had said. "And Lady T'Malia has advised me that Physics teachers don't grow on trees."

Ponder had blinked. He looked down at Famke's answer to a simple question in classical mechanics thought appropriately testing for the first year at a secondary school. She had pointed out a difficulty with the premise of the set question and elaborated on it with a thought experiment.

 _Suppose you isolate an alpha particle and accelerate it in absolute vacuum. It is perceived not to follow the equation_ F=ma _. The question now becomes one of assessing the point p at which quantum mechanics is superceded by classical mechanics as perceived in the everyday macroscopic world…_

"She's showing off." Ponder had said.

" _Ja."_ Johanna agreed. "It perhaps comes of having _you_ as a father. Osmosis, perhaps. I suspect a degree of dumb insolence is happening here. Ruth is doing it because she is simply a long way ahead of her peers and she is bored at school. She cannot help it. Famke, on the other hand, is using an area where she has a degree of specialised knowledge to be creatively insolent. The question is what do we do about both?"

Ponder winced.

"Did we ever have this problem with Bekki?" he asked.

Johanna smiled slightly.

"Only in her History classes." she reminded him. "I understand by the end, Miss Lonsdale-Rust had began developing nervous tics."

Ponder had steeled himself to look at further examples of homework submitted by both daughters. Famke even had a working grasp of basic mathematical equations in Quantum, although he detected errors that suggested she was regurgitating things only incompletely understood... absently, he corrected her mathematical reasoning.

 _I've got students who operate at this level... at a unversity..._

From above there was the unmistakeable sound of a double bass, with noises that occassionally coincided with those of a bow being drawn across the strings.

 _Bekki. Ah well. She is improving. Slightly. At least when she goes back to Lancre or elsewhere, the bass goes with her._

* * *

" _Liewe hecksie_?" the kindly voice said.

Bekki put down the bow, glad for a break. She still wasn't sure of the precise reason why she was trying to do this. Being able to join in with Ruth, or when she got back to Lancre, with Alison, and to share their music, yes. But she was also uneasily contemplating the notion that Ampie might have something to do with it, too.

She frowned. They said that when you met a guy and liked him, you felt obliged to share his interests. Didn't they? Crockett and music. Damn, damn and damn, she was doing both.

She still felt like this was pandering to expectations.

Bekki felt that generations of witches were looking at her and expressing dissaproval. Then the train of thought arrived at Nanny Ogg Central and pulled up to the platform. Bekki had a visual picture of Nanny grinning a big dirty grin, making gestures of approval... _and other sorts of gestures._

She shuddered slightly, but also felt better about it.

"Hello, Johanna Francesca." she said, politely. Bekki watched her deceased great-aunt taking her ease and sitting in the big comfy chair. Or at least, a good simulation of sitting. "What brings you here?"

" _Well, you're not the only person I can speak to here."_ her great-aunt said. _"But your father is preoccupied and your younger sister is at school. And I do quite like you. How are you getting on with your music?"_

"Slowly. Not as fast as I would like." Bekki said, indicating the bow.

Johanna Francesca nodded sympathetically.

" _We understand that. Would you appreciate some lessons?"_

"I didn't know you played." Bekki said. Johanna Francesca laughed.

" _I don't. But the Afterlife is a big place and we are not the only people in it. You make contacts. Friends, even."_

There was a pause. Her great-aunt delivered a helpful prompt.

" _I can come here freely as I am family and welcome. But others require invitation. There are Rules. Especially with the magical guards on this place."_

Bekki understood. She said "Friend of Aunt Johanna. On this one occasion, would you like to come in?"

The new ghost looked a little like the iconographer Otto Chriek, only human. He was a dapper man in full evening dress and had _fussiness_ written all over him. He blinked in the new place.

"Back in the world again." he said. His accent was Überwaldean. "Ah, _danke, Frau Smith-Rhodes_."

"Technically a _Fraulein_." Aunt Johanna said. "Never married. But here is the girl, Gustav. My great-niece, of whom I am very fond and to whom I owe many thanks."

Gustav looked Bekki over, critically. His eyes took in the double bass and lit up.

"Ah. You play, madchen? Or is it the case that you are learning to play?"

"Just learning." Bekki said.

Gustav smiled happily.

"You would not believe what a trial it is not to have physical form and not to be able to play." he said. "Your aunt is unable to handle weapons for the same reason. Our philosophers, and we have many in the Afterlife **(1),** speculate that is where legends of Hell originated. It is at the least purgatory."

"Herr Gustav von Verschlimbesserung was the principal bassist for the Bonk Philharmonic Orchestra." Johanna Francesca said. "I spoke to him. He is interested in you and suggests taking you on as a pupil. By arrangement."

"Okay." Bekki said, intrigued.

Herr Gustaf beamed.

" _Sehr gut!_ Madchen, may we discuss tuition fees?"

"Okay..." Bekki said. Then she heard what the price of tuition was.

"There is no danger, _liewe hecksie_." Johanna Francesca assured her. "Firstly, he knows you are a _heksie_ and is aware of what will happen if he does not respect you. Secondly, he knows if you need my intervention, _I_ will enforce the agreement. By force, if needs be."

Johanna looked at Gustav and nodded. It reminded Bekki of her mother when she felt a need to emphasise a point.

The fussily dressed Überwaldean nodded back and smiled benignly.

"Two reasons not to be incautious or to overstay my welcome, then. I am aware I may only do this with your consent. But oh, to play the bass one more time.."

Bekki nodded. Then there was a shift in consciousness and she was aware she was sharing her personal space. She wondered if Mrs Cake felt like this all the time.

" _Oh, Wahnsinn!"_ she heard the second voice in her head. _"To be in a body again..."_

Bekki felt her fingers twitching with commands she was not putting there.

"Just do _not_ touch anything that isn't to do with playing a double bass." she said. Just to establish the ground rules.

" _Verstehen, junge madchen. Now relax and let my hands instruct yours..."_

Bekki felt herself picking up the bow. And felt her fingers moving on the frets. And then...

Apparentrly it was the _Ode to Schadenfreude_ from a symphony written by Ludwig van Werkzeug zum Heben von Rüben. Gustav explained there was the moment in the final movement where the entire orchestra fell silent and the theme began on the double bass, then spread like a contagion first through the string section and then to the whole orchestra, and chorus. _When our humble instrument has a chance to shine, madchen!_ **(2)**

"Today the string section. Tomorrow the orchestra." Bekki couldn't help herself saying.

" _Ja!_ _Heute, der Saitenabschnitt. Morgen, das Orchester!"_

But they played on together. Bekki felt her body adopting new positions and her arm and fingers learning about bowcraft from a master. And she realised. You didn't use it like a saw. You let the bow _guide_ and _stroke._..

* * *

And from downstairs, Ponder Stibbons heard the exponential leap in his daughter's abilities. He frowned. Magic was at work... but he paused to listen, all the same, while sensing the psychic atmosphere.

" _Relax, Professor Ponder_." he heard the voice saying near his ear. He jumped. Johanna could do that effortlessly. Her deceased relatives were _better_ at it. _"We have it taken care of. I would not allow anything nearby that could place Rebecka into harm."_

"Thank you." Ponder said. "Err. Johanna Livinia, isn't it? Mevrou Smith-Rhodes?"

" _It is, Professor Ponder. We thought, to spare everybody's ears, that Rebecka should be put in touch with a music teacher. A good one. He is a good man, and benign. With a passion for music. Hard to find, as so many genius musicians had unfortunate personality issues in life that made them hard to like, and certainly made them untrustworthy around young women_ **.(3)** _Johanna Francesca is chaperoning."_

* * *

"Bodily memory." Gustav said, at the end. "Over the course of our sessions, madchen, your body will absorb the skills I had in life. You may not be as good a bass player as I was. But I can assure you that you will be a _much better_ one."

"Thank you." Bekki said.

"Now it is time to leave, I think. I have no wish to remain as an uninvited guest. Not in the body of a Witch."

" _And I would have gone in and pulled you out again by the scruff of your neck."_ Johanna Francesca remarked, pleasantly. _"But there will be no need for that, I think."_

Bekki again thanked her guests as they departed. She picked up the bow and allowed her body to adjust... this time the sound was not that of an orchestral maestro guiding her hands. But it was still a lot better than it had been an hour or so previously.

* * *

 _ **The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.**_

"Thank you." Ruth N'Kweze said, as she turned the weapon over in her hands. "And you say you've created thirty-two of these for immediate use? You've worked hard."

Her armourer smiled in appreciation.

"It used most of the silver that was immediately available." he advised her.

Ruth nodded to Chakki N'Golante, who made a note.

"We'd better get some in, then. This could be important."

She handed the silver-plated assegai to another aide. Somewhere in the background a baby cried. Ruth jumped and fought down an urge to go to him. She still had to make time for leadership and decision-making.

"Is there enough silver available to plate, say, fifty or sixty crossbow bolt-heads?" Ruth asked. "I'd like the best shots in my personal guard to carry two or three each. For tricky moments."

The armourer frowned and said he might be able to manage twenty or so. Perhaps, with care, twenty-five. But more silver would be needed, Your Highness.

"I'll get you some." Ruth promised him. She wondered where from, exactly. How did you go about getting precious metals in useful quantities? The silver that could be provided had been gained by melting down jewellry and plundering the treasury for coins with a silver content. Ruth had authorised this as a necessary expedient, so as to get at least _some_ of her soldiers armed with silver weapons for fighting weres. The armourers and artificers had then silver-plated the live blades on the weapons. Just a thin gilding, if you could call it that. A comparitively small amount of silver had gone a long way. But if any more Nagas came calling, there was now a counter-weapon.

"Silver nitrate, highness?" Chakki said, diffidently. "You can buy that from an alchemical suppliers. Trawlers in Ankh-Morpork do it. Perhaps one of the witches could collect and deliver?"

"Good point." Ruth said, thoughtfully. She remembered a time when she and Johanna Smith-Rhodes had gone hunting for were-creatures. **(4)** The silver nitrate bombs Johanna had devised had been _lethal_.

"We _could_ reduce silver nitrate back to the elemental form, Your Highness." the armourer said, mistaking her intent. "We would need common salt, a strong caustic, and formaldehyde.."

"Order them too, Chakki." Ruth said. _Let the chap feel useful. And this could be interesting in itself..._

"And some sort of fulminate too, Highness." Chakki prompted her."You need an explosive trigger, if you're planning on making bombs."

"We can do that here, Highness." the armourer said. "Cinnabar is available in the hills near here, the geologist advises me. Mercury fulminate is a known exothermic alchemy reagant."

Ruth grinned. One of the growing community of Central Continent artificers attracted to working here was a skilled geologist. She had him exploring nearby terrain in her fiefdom with a professional eye, looking for useful things. Gold might be good. _If it's there, I'll need some bloody Dwarfs... more complications..._

Ruth made a note to have intermediaries approach commodities brokers in Ankh-Morpork to buy a couple of silver ingots. Not many, it wouldn't need that many. She wondered if Vetinari would permit its export. Never mind, we can deal with that.

She dismissed the armourer with thanks, and went with Chakki to look in on baby Nipho.

"Good prompt on the nitrate bombs." Ruth said, accepting her son from the nurse.

"You need a defence against weres." Chakki said. "Especially afteryou told the Witch-Finders they were as useful as a chocolate teapot or an ashtray on a racehorse."

They were speaking Morporkian. Neither of the Lionesses on guard nor the nurse spoke this language. Ruth had presented one of the door-guards with the silver assegai, remembering she had survived the fight with the Naga, and had said "You are the first. In recognition of your bravery and willingness to fight for me. This weapon will hurt creatures of _muti_. In time _all_ my personal guards will carry moon-metal blades. And the blade still has a steel core. For more usual enemies."

"Good point again." Ruth said. "The Witch-Finders control the Leopard Society. I've annoyed them. And some bright spark is going to remember I helped kill two of them in Ankh-Morpork **.(5)** Worse, I fought alongside the Red Death on the night. Who they'd been sent to kill. If I get the pussycats prowling around wanting to play catch-up or question my loyalties, I _will_ need silver weapons."

"Or one of your half-brothers or sisters might hire a were-leopard to come after you." Chakki said. "And your ex-husband's family are likely to remember who inhumed him."

"We're Assassins." Ruth said. "That sort of thing comes with the pink slip." She paused, settled Nipho in her arms, and added "You know about dealing with big cats, too. The Red Death used you as bait in a lion-trap once, didn't she?" **(6)**

Chakkie grinned.

"I came out alive." she said. "And Johanna gave me training at the new Zoo afterwards. Lions and tigers and leopards. Interesting."

Ruth smiled and sat, nursing her son. She motioned Chakki to sit with her.

"So. Thirty-two silver weapons." Ruth said, thoughtfully. "With more to come. Any thoughts?"

Chakki considered.

"Ruth, I saw how the woman on guard reacted to your giving her the first one." she said. "She lit up. Real pride and swank. And those silver spearheads look _good_ , too. Parade the women who have them out in the sunlight, and they'll _gleam_. There's going to be real competition to earn them. Everyone's going to want one. The women who succeed become an élite."

Ruth smiled slightly.

"Win all round, then. The women compete for the prestige. Only the very best guardswomen get them. Not _everybody_. And I get personal guards who can kill a Naga or a were-leopard. Weres can sense silver from a long way. They'll be warned off. And as the crossbow bolts are going to be hidden in waist-pouches till they're needed, they won't know about _those_. Till they get hit by one."

Ruth smiled again.

"Worth sacrificing a few bits of bling for." she said. "That silver is serving a far more useful purpose now."

There was a silence. Chakkie filled it.

"The press corps." she said.

Ruth frowned slightly.

"Gods, yes. The _journalists_."

* * *

The fight with the Naga had spread around the world. It had caught the imagination. Everybody wanted to know more. Especially since the brave Princess had gone into labour shortly afterwards and had a son who might one day be a King. Ruth had seen the benefits of this and sent iconographs of herself and her newborn back to Ankh-Morpork to go into the _**Times**_. You couldn't under-estimate the value of good PR. Via Olga Romanoff, she had extended an invitation to any newspaper wanting to sent a representative out to come and be present at Nipho's Presentation. She could also organise extended tours of her more-than-a-kraal so that the world's press could see her nascent city and her soldiers. Nothing to hide. _Nothing much, anyway._ And writers-of-news were indeed turning up. Several of them. All with accreditation.

"You wanted a private word with the one from the Sto Kerrig paper? _De Telegraf van DamHamster_?" Chakkie prompted her.

"Yes. Marilyn van der Medelander, I believe." Ruth shook her head and smiled a little amused smile. "Have her escorted here, would you? Advise her the Princess is pleased to grant her a private audience, and she could well get a scoop. Possibly even _What a story_!"

* * *

Marilyn van der Medelander had heard through channels of her own that writers of news had been invited to the Zulu Empire to vouch to the world that Princess Ruth was alive and well after the sensational asassination attempt, and the eyes of the world, if they were on her corner of the Zulu Empire, may as well be there to observe the new city springing up from nowhere in the middle of an Empire not previously renowned for things like cities as the rest of the world knew them. And, it's my son's formal Presentation and Naming. Why not be my guests, if you think it's in any way at all newsworthy?

Marilyn's journalistic instincts had twanged. She was going to bloody well be there, whatever it cost. She had left a note to her editor to advise him of where she was going and that she'd submit expenses in the usual way on her return. She had also quickly visited her parents on the way out. Her father had been dubious and tried to talk her out of it. But he'd spoken to contacts who had got her some necessary introductions. Her father now had _lots_ of contacts in _lots_ of countries. Another quick word to a friend called Olga Romanoff had got her the favour of a very quick lift to Ankh-Morpork, where she'd made a courtesy call on Sacharissa Cripslock. Sacharissa had called her a perfect idiot, but had also said if they find out, they won't hear it from _me_. Further accreditation had followed, and she had then flown out to Howondaland on a magic carpet towed by a Pegasus, ferrying other members of the press corps from various papers and countries. Lord Vetinari had apparently approved.

Marilyn had then tagged on with various escorted parties to be shown round Ruth N'Kweze's world. Seeing so many armed Zulus in the same place- hundreds, maybe thousands - was a little disconcerting. Especially when she was told Princess Ruth's husband had brought his own Army Corps here and they were camped out in the hills over there somewhere, they say _at least_ five thousand men. She was reminded that Zulus tended not to see the distinction between Sto Kerrigians and Vondalaanders and were inclined towards "same difference". Anybody with a white skin and a " _van der_ " in her name was therefore suspect. She assiduously tried to only speak Morporkian if she could. Kerrigian was too close to being Vondalaans. _Not_ a popular language in this place.

She had been impressed at what she saw. Only approved iconographs could be taken here; Otto Chriek had attended with the intention of getting lots of pictures of the Presentation, which promised to be visually spectacular. He was being minded in the visiting party and politely dissuaded from taking pictures inside the kraal. The Princess had insisted on this, apparently. Marilyn had smiled. It would possibly be the most unique Naming that magazines like _Tepidity_ and _Wotcher_ had ever reported on. But the birth of a royal child _always_ made the illustrated glossies. It was a given.

Marilyn had been walking around, smiling a lot and talking to people. An easy charm was something she'd inherited from her mother. An asset she used a lot in her work. And she had to admit, a city was beginning to emerge here. There were factories, ugly functional sheds on the Ankh-Morporkian model. Industrial noise. Smoke. Alchemical smells. The Central Continent compound, where the journalists were staying, was an enclave all on its own, a suburb, you could call it, of buildings devised to a different, more Central Continent, style. That was occupying lots of the space between the inner and middle and outer walls of the kraal. It was beginning to look like a transplanted part of Ankh-Morpork with overtones of White Howondaland. New houses were going up all the time, with, where the occupants could lay claim to it, patches of garden. She noted one was guarded by Ankh-Morpork City Watchmen and carried a sign saying CONSULATE OF THE CITY STATE OF ANKH-MORPORK IN THE CITY OF THE INGONYAMA. And the outermost wall around the original kraal was being progressively rebuilt in stone. It even had towers, one now being rebuilt in stone, with a parapet and walkway along the top of the wall where it had been completed. Marilyn noted the large number of white people who were advising and leading and training Zulus to perform necessary jobs. she even spoke to a few who emphasised the good pay and the challenge and how well they were treated here, and such a nice place to bring the family to, the kids love it here. Those indigeonous native buildings seemed to be in the centre, and had an army barracks feel to them. But some were clearly civilian habitats. Civilian settlement was now spilling out on the other side of the outer wall, with low makeshift brush fences to keep animals out. Farmland extended quite a long way, and in the distance, what now was taking on the form of a road to the hills, earth beaten down and compacted by the passage of many vehicles. Ox-carts were regularly going to and fro, some empty, others with building stone. Marilyn tried to memorise things so as to add them later to the sketch-map that was taking shape in her allocated room. Iconography was discouraged.

And then the patrol of soldiers found her. The intent-looking women soldiers, who looked quietly intimidating.

She recognised Chakki N'Golante, the Ankh-Morpork-trained Assassin who worked for the Princess. Chakki smiled politely and relayed Ruth's request. Marilyn smiled back and said she would be delighted. The section of soldiers fell in around and behind her as Chakkie led the way. Marilyn had a moment of trepidation, then shrugged and went to where the story was.

* * *

There was a pot of tea on the table, which was a homely touch. Chakki went to stand by the door as Marilyn accepted the gracious invitation of the Princess to sit and make herself comfortable. Princess Ruth was somebody the journalist immediately recognised. She bit back a moment of worry that the Princess might also have a long memory for faces...

Ruth, sitting comfortably with her baby son in her arms, asked if Marilyn wouldn't mind pouring the tea, please. Thank you. Rooibuis, hope you don't mind? You probably don't have that very much in _Sto Kerrig_?

Marilyn saw amusement in the Princess's face as she poured the tea, the familiar reassuring scent of redbush filling the room.

They lifted their cups.

Then Ruth N'Kweze sighed a deep sigh.

"Suki, whatever got into your head to make you think you could get away with this?" she asked.

Suki van der Graaf, seeker-after-news, winced slightly. She _did_ remember.

Ruth shook her head.

"You've had your hair dyed black, and I don't doubt for one moment your accreditation to _De Telegraf van DamHamster_ is genuine and right now you _are_ working for that paper. But. _Marilyn van der Mederlander._ I do speak Vondalaans, you know. And it's not a big leap from there to Kerrigian. _Mederlander_ means something like "from a related country." Or "almost but not quite of this one". What a giveaway."

Ruth sipped her tea and watched Suki.

"And staying a "van der". When your real name is "van der Graaf". Something they warn you against when doing Disguise and Deception at school, Never pick a cover identity that gives people even the smallest clue as to your real one."

Suki smiled embarrassedly.

"I heard there might be a story in this?" she asked, hopefully.

"What, White Howondalandian spy caught out in clumsy deception, enters Zulu Empire posing as a journalist from Sto Kerrig?" Ruth asked. She let this sink in for a few seconds, then grinned.

"I needed a laugh after the last few days." she said, and extended a hand. "Welcome to my kraal. And be thankful I know you."

"I get to interview you now?" Suki asked, hopefully. Ruth gave her a stern look.

"I _could_ get to disembowel _you_." she said. "But I'm inclined to say – stay Marilyn van der Mederlander from Sto Kerrig for now, do what you have to do for the next day or two, and the fact you are _really_ Suki van der Graaf from Pratoria is our secret. Clear? Good."

Ruth grinned again. "Strictly speaking nobody gets to see my son until he's Presented. So I'm holding your scoop right now. You're the first person from the wider world to see my son. Two Witches present at his birth, the nurse who tends him, Chakki who escorted us back here from the birthing place under cover of dark - who is my personal assistant – and now _you._ Only the fifth person to see Nipho. So far. Do you want to hold him a while?"

Suki let headlines form in her head. _Your reporter got to hold the future king of the Zulu Empire in her arms. Admittedly only three or four days old. A baby boy born to be King..._ most of all she felt the warm fuzziness of a woman allowed to hold a tiny baby. Not even a world-trotting journalist is immune from this.

They talked abut families and mutual friends for a while. It was easy and relaxed. Suki wondered about this woman's motivations. Newspapers at home, including her own, had pigeon-holed her as a deadly threat, a cold calculating deadly enemy scheming to become the Paramount Empress at any cost. This, to Suki, was not the Ruth N'Kweze she'd first met in the aftermath of the Battle of the Tobacco Fields **(7),** and a year or two later, when she had arrived in Ankh-Morpork to scoop the attempt to kill Johanna Smith-Rhodes and her family **.(8)** Suki had arrived in the aftermath of the fighting at Spa Lane and had stayed for the trial and execution of the would-be murderers. But that had been sixteen years ago... she had been banking on Ruth not remembering her face. She hadn't really been expecting to meet Ruth face-to-face... she had even put a temporary dye in her hair as an extra precaution, but it appeared she'd been identified straight away.

"You're blonde, by the way." Ruth added. "Another lesson. You're naturally a pale blonde, so it still shows up like Hell if you have your hair dyed black. _Not natural._ People clock that and wonder why you did it, and what you've got to hide. It really might have been better if you'd gone brunette and had it restyled short."

Ruth paused, and added

"But in your case, in this country. Given who your relatives are – _I am glad you did not dye your hair red._ Important. You might be mistaken for a Smith-Rhodes with red hair, and I think if that happened, there wouldn't be much I could do about it. At least here, I can pretend to be surprised after you leave my place, go home, and the stories appear under your real name. I can then admit I got taken in, and give you a bit of grudging respect for being so good at your job that you fooled everybody."

"Thanks. I'm glad you're taking it so well." Suki said. Ruth shrugged.

"What can I do? I know you're not here to plant any bombs or kill anyone. You're not an Assassin. You've not been sent here to spy on us. Despite having started that detailed sketch map of my kraal that you keep hidden in your allocated room. I know from what Johanna and Mariella said about you that you can't stand BOSS and you hate the idea of being beholden to your government. You wouldn't willingly work for them, right? You managed to swing your National Service to get into the public relations section at the Bureau of Defence, and you went into newspapers straight afterwards. But those two years in uniform are all the government work you've ever done."

Ruth noted the slightly astonished look on Suki's face.

"We do our homework too, Suki. I'm satisfied you're no threat. So I'm not arresting you as a White Howondalandian who's illegally entered our country."

Ruth stroked her baby son's cheek.

"Besides, I have to show clemency to offenders and issue pardons on the occasion of a royal birth. It's expected. Tradition. So consider yourself pardoned. Besides, how is it going to look if I execute a member of the press corps? Any good publicity from the papers is going to evaporate like piss in the wind if I start executing journalists. Defeats the object of inviting you all here."

Ruth grinned and ticked off a few more points.

"I know your cousins. Johanna thinks you can be a pain in the arse but she's not going to be happy about it if I mistreat you. Mariella thinks you're okay. Oh, when you see her next, confirm I got her message and that I believe her? Thanks. Kind of her to send it. Thank her for me. And most crucially, I like, respect and get on with your father. I think I can reveal we are occassionally in touch, as private citizens. I value knowing him and I'm not going to prejudice that by having you bumped off. I'll mention that you dropped by. But I suspect he already knows."

Ruth smiled again.

"Right. Fancy a few eye-witness accounts of the battle with the Naga? We can start with mine..."

 _ **To be continued...**_

 _ **Ruth's son will be Presented and Named to his people. After pushing her luck, Suki returns home. (and What A Story!) We move to the summer hols and a Witch Trial. Bekki becomes a reluctant Watchwoman.**_

* * *

 **(1)** Other people in the Afterlife grumbled that philosophers were such smug bastards because they could continue where they left off doing exactly what they did in **life.**

 **(2)** OK. The Ode to Joy from Beethoven's ninth. But you knew this already, didn't you?

 **(3)** watching the damn Royal Wedding at the weekend. Feeling vaguely disappointed that the energetic and outgoing American bishop who led the sermon did not – as I really hoped – do the full James Brown shtick at the Landmark Church in _**The Blues Brothers,**_ and _really_ Americanise the service. Imagining Liz and Camilla and the other ladies present dancing in the House of the Lord and livening the place up. Ah well… watching the Royal Harpist playing for the congregation and reflecting on an aspect of my reseach. Which led me to conclude that the _real_ hooligans in a pro orchestra are not – surprisingly – the percussionists. Nor are they the horns. Two previous Royal Harpists have brought the profession into disrepute. One lost her By Royal Appointment status over the fraud and burglaries she needed to do to support a drug habit. A second former Royal Harpist, married to a teacher, is currently in prison over an interest she shared with her husband – namely, teenage boys. Well, there's nothing like sharing a hobby with your spouse. She'd procure the boys and he'd join in. A veil of discretion is drawn over What Happened Next. Harp players, huh. You wouldn't credit it.

 **(4)** to my story _**Whys and Weres.**_

 **(5)** to my tale _**Whys and Weres**_ , again.

 **(6)** to my tale _**Nature Studies**_.

 **(7)** to my story _**Bungle In The Jungle**_

 **(8)** to my story Hyperemesis Gravidarum. There's a lot of back-story here.

* * *

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.**_

German, **_verschlimbesserung_** : any action which whilst sincerely intended to improve a situation, only makes it worse…

Watched a short documentary about an all-female army unit in Zimbabwe – and you really would not mess with them. Not at all. The real Lionesses.

Also playing with the idea of subverting **_The Lion King_ **when Nipho is Presented. _Nants Ingonyama Bagithi Baba_ , the Circle of Life, and all that. Damn, could have sworn the singer supported Arsenal and was singing "Arsene Wenger"… hatuna matata... _Siyo nqoba_ – we will conquer.

From Wikipedia: "(In Dutch) **Medelander** is a neologism from two words: "mede-" ("co-") and "Nederlander" ("Dutch person"). It literally means co-countryman. Medelander was coined as a euphemism for the word "allochtoon" (lit: "from a strange land"), which was itself coined as a euphemism for "buitenlander" ("foreigner") and "asielzoeker" ("asylum seeker"). It is now used as a derogatory term in an ironic way. It is often written between scare quotes to accentuate its difference from a "Nederlander"."

I think I get this: English does much the same when it differentiates or adds pre/suffixes to acknowledge, sometimes grudgingly, that other people living here are entitled to call themselves British, _but..._ so you get "British-Asian" or "Asian-British", for instance, implying that yes, he or she is British but they're also Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi. The implication, negatively, is "not quite the full deal" or "not quite like the rest of us". Gradations. And I know I mis-spelt "medelander" in Suki's alias. Must ask Dutch readers: what is the accepted status (socially or legally) of Afrikaaners in Holland? Do South Africans who speak a broadly recognisable, if odd, language class as "medelanders" - almost but not quite the full deal?

* * *

Finally got the lyrics to Ampie (SA singer-songwriter)'s _"Plein Jane"_ not bad, only eighteen months or so after first hearing the song and liking it… (reads like somebody was transcribing direct from the song – even I could spot the gaps and the spelling errors, and see where they might have mis-heard a few bits, and I'm nowhere near fully fluent. Oh; one or two of my corrections might be Dutch spellings rather than Afrikaans and I might have inserted a few typos of my own. Asseblief.)

Damn, could have sworn he was singing about a meisie from _Magersfontein_ – apparently it's Maaikiesfontein. Or Matjiesfontein. Which is a real place, but nowhere near Magersfontein. Ah well.

Sy dra net animal fur,

'n Prada bril (een bra vir bro?), Calvin Klein for her

Sy rol met die nieuwe iPad

Hazel Dreams, sy's baie wert

Sy dra 'n aktuaris,

Wat ophou praat. tot sy klaar is;

Sy skryf met 'n Montblanc pen (?)

(missing words) het sy reeds verken

Sy's nie by nie;

Nie vir my nie

Kan my nie kry nie;

Ek soek 'n Plain Jane, haar trein

Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein

Ry trein, rooksein

wat ver in die lug verdwyn

'n Meisie wat my hart laat klop;

En net daaroor te veel laat stop;

Plain Jane, haar trein

Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein

Sy dra 'n John Deer hoed

Werk op die plaas in haar oukamp boots

Sy ry in 'n groot geel trok,

Skape, beeste, agterop!

Sondae is sy moeg gewerk,

Kry weer krag by die ouklip kerk,

Dans soos 'n dreun op haar ousing kat,

Van 'n (?) als dit moeilik raak!

Sy is my nie,;

so verleidelik;

Laat ek verduidelik;

Ek soek 'n Plain Jane, haar trein ,

Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein;

Ry trein, rooksein;

wat ver in die lug verdwyn;

'n Meissie wat my hart laat klop,

En net daaroor te veel laat stop,

Plain Jane, haar trein,

Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein

Op 'n ou grond pad het my kar gaan staan,

En om die draai kom 'n geel trok aan,

Sy trap die rem ek hoor die bieke kraak,

So deur die stof kom my engel aan.

Plain Jane, haar trein,

Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein;

Ry trein, rooksein,

wat ver in die lug verdwyn!

'n Meissie wat my hart laat klop,

En net daaroor te veel laat stop,

Plain Jane, haar trein,

Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein;

Sy's my lewe;

So tevrede;

Met goeie reden;

Sy's my lewe;

Plain Jane, haar trein,

Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein,

Ry trein, rooksein,

wat ver in die lug verdwyn;

'n Meissie wat my hart laat klop,

En net daaroor te veel laat stop;

Plain Jane, haar trein,

Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein…


	44. Die Medelander

_**Strandpiel 44 Die Medelander – the almost-a-native**_

 ** _Here we go again. As always, version 1.0 of the chapter..._**

FAO Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes

By secure internal Guild mail.

Hi Johanna!

"Sorry it's been a while but things here have been quite busy. Nipho is well and healthy – latest iconographs enclosed! – and hopefully we can now be allowed a little quiet and peace after his very first Royal Engagement. I am hoping there will not be any more of those for a while. Please send copies of the newspapers and magazines? I believe the Press Corps was suitably won over and coverage will be favourable. It had better be, we worked hard enough to give them a spectacular show!

"How are you getting on with your parents in town? I liked them when we met and your father was certainly well-inclined towards me, after that initial misunderstanding. (He is not what you want to meet when you are in the regalia and carrying an assegai. Things might have become difficult, had Julian not been present to explain.) **(1)**

"I can see that you can find them a trial at times. Family are like that. Especially at the sort of occassions when they _must_ atttend, say at the Naming of your child. At least they are staying with Heidi and Danie on this visit. I hope Heidi remains cheerful and good-natured. How was the Naming for Mattewis, by the way? Compared to the Naming for Nipho, it would have been far more straightforward to arrange, even if Heidi may not think so. I sympathise that she had to deal with that idiot of a priest, for instance. How is it that van Niedermayer is still alive?

As you no doubt know from the papers, my own family turned up to celebrate Nipho at his Presentation. Let me tell you about this..."

* * *

Ruth N'Kweze sat up straight.

"He is WHAT?" she shrieked. _Great. On top of every bloody thing else..._

Chakki N'Golante looked worried.

"His messenger is here, Highness. Waiting outside. Shall I bring him in?"

"You'd better, I think." Ruth said. "Wait. Lionskin cloak. Head-dress. Bling of office. Better look the part."

Chakki found the official regalia. This included the ceremonial assegai with the silvered blade. Ruth had warmed significantly to something she had previously considered an absurd toy and not a real weapon. Her troops had hailed it as _Serpent-Slayer_. It now carried the name with pride.

The Paramount Crown Princess composed herself into something approaching regal hauteur. Then Chakki led the Imperial Messenger in, an older Zulu man in robes that sought to be plain and humble. Ruth reflected that some priests, like Deacon Vorbis of the Omnians, had also worn _that_ sort of plain unadorned robe. To advertise how humble they were, and that they were merely servants.

He made obiesiance that was more than perfunctory but not quite fully respectful. Ruth frowned.

"Greetings to the Paramount Crown Princess, Most Favoured Daughter of the Great King, Victor over Muntab, slayer of the muti-serpent..." he began.

Ruth looked at the man. Tall, widening about the waist with a physically easy life at the Royal Kraal, looking – and walking - like a large fussy flightless bird. With those heavy-lidded eyes and that big beaked nose.

She cut him short with an imperious hand gesture.

"I know how it goes, Zazu." she said, impatiently. She watched him wince at the contraction.

Zazumina was her father's Speaker, his personal assistant, secretary, and, Ruth considered, an oily creep with too much power.

"Please explain the purpose of your visit?" she invited him. She didn't let on that she already knew.

Zazu smiled.

"I bring greetings from Mpandwe kaCeteshwayo, High Paramount King of the Empire of the 'Nguni, Lord of the Peoples of the Mthethwa, rightful ruler of all Howondaland..."

Ruth let him almost finish.

"And my father is in good health, I hope? What does he require of his faithful daughter _this_ time?"

"The Great King sends his greetings to you and his congratulations on the birth of his grandson, the Prince Nipho. He is desirous to see his new grandson for the first time, to congratulate both you and General Denizulu, and sends you advice that he will be gracing the Presentation of the new Prince to his people. Even now he is on his way here in royal procession..."

Ruth sat, impassive, her mind calculating distances and travel times. Her father and his entourage would be here in about six hours. She cut Zazu short again and called for Chakki.

Damn, damn, damn. But you couldn't exclude Family from a Naming. She remembered her father had a taste for Jimkin Bearhugger's Old Macabre. She tried to remember if there was a bottle of the stuff anywhere. Then reflected the visiting journalists were _really_ going to get a scoop here. _How can I manage this to advantage?_

* * *

FAO Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes

By secure internal Guild mail.

"Anyway. Chakki got everyone moving. I like the way she went straight to the Regimental Izindunas, both mine and Denis's, and explained what was needed. That shows a great practical sense, as when you tell the Regimental Sergeant-Majors that their Commander-in-Chief is turning up at very short notice, you can then take the rest of the day off. Things start to move very quickly after that.

"Sissi was still confined to bed in the hospital and we had to stop her getting out of it. I thought it was best to move my office to the hospital so as to get her input into things and stop her from trying to get onto her feet. I am so pleased I have those two people working alongside me. They know what's needed. Graduates of the School, of course.

"You know how it is when your parents turn up at short notice and kind of take over? Well. Mine do the same. With knobs on. Mother not so much – she was expected to fade into the background and be inobtrusive – but my father.

"At least I could find him a bottle of Bearhuggers Old Macabre as a gift. And the right people to ask were present."

* * *

Sacharissa Cripslock, sensing a Story, had flown over with a party of writers-of-news. She had taken the time and done the research, and was wearing a variation of her usual business suit, only in lightweight summer white, with the sort of hat known as a solar topee, which sported a fetching white silk scarf wound about it with a long tail that draped attactively down her back.

The Kerrigian-accredited journalist known here as Marilyn van der Medelander sat next to her, and reflected on how clothing enforced roles and expectations on people as if everyone was conforming to an unwritten script. Sacharrisa was speaking to the natives in a loud firm voice, in Morporkian, with every expectation that she would be understood and obeyed. And practically every Zulu she met was giving her respect, getting the idea, and obeying.

 _Talk about Lady Alice Venturi..._ thought Marilyn, with appreciation and not a little envy. Marilyn thought if _she_ tried it, with her accent and background, it was a short inevitable step to being run through on an asssegai. The Zulu minder assigned to her by the Princess had had to step in on a couple of occassions to remind suspicious people that despite the language she spoke, despite her suspicious accent in Morporkian, despite her name having a potentially damning " _van der_ " in it, she was in fact Sto Kerrigian and not a Vondalaander, and yes, there is a _difference_. The Sto Kerrigians might be superficially similar, but _they_ are the ones who stayed behind in their faraway land of origin. They do not practice apartheid and are friendly and welcoming to all peoples regardless of skin colour. _They_ did not emigrate en masse to this continent, to steal a large part of Howondaland, enslave the natives, and make themselves bad neighbours to our people. Whatever her people in Howondaland are guilty of, she is not one of them, and is blameless.

Marilyn prayed that the secret wouldn't get out. So far only Ruth and her two most trusted advisors knew. She had interviewed both Chakki and Sissi about their part in the fight with the Naga. From her hospital bed, Sissi N'Kima had called her a complete bloody idiot and asked what the Hells she was thinking of.

Marilyn sweated slightly. She wondered herself what demon had got into her to compel her to come out here. A patron demon of seekers-after-news and those addicted to nosiness and potential danger, possibly. But she was getting the story. _And what a story!_

"Not been found out yet?" Sacharissa asked her, in a low voice.

Marilyn sighed.

"Yes. The Princess knows."

Shame-facedly, she added

"She spotted it straight away."

Sacharissa smiled slightly.

"Be thankful this is Ruth N'Kweze. You might describe her as not so much a Zulu as an Ankh-Morporkian of Zulu parentage. Somebody else would have had you dragged out and killed. Slowly and painfully, I might add."

"She didn't, though."

Sacharissa took a deep breath.

"Ruth knows about newspapers. How they work. How to play the game. She gets publicity, we get a story. Be thankful she knew having you killed would end up in every paper in the Disc. As your very last scoop with, may I add, a long and regretful obituary from Mr Bendy. When I left he was writing one for you, to save time."

The two looked at each other. Then both grinned.

"And she talks to my father." Marilyn added. Sacharissa looked suddenly interested.

"Zulu Crown Princess in deniable informal talks with..."

Marilyn hurriedly cut her short in mid-headline. Sacharissa got the point. Some things you only discussed in private. Definitely not where other journalists could hear it.

"The _**Times**_ gets my copy first, obviously. You know. The one that I don't submit to a certain sub-editor for _revision_."

"From our... _overseas local correspondent_."

Then they moved onto things they could discuss openly, noting Chakki N'Golante and a couple of Zulu soldiers heading their way. Marilyn and Sacharissa had been aware of life in the City of the Ingonyami suddenly picking up speed, with junior officers, looking panicked, rushing in all directions to find sergeants, who were patiently steadying their officers and shouting orders to lower-ranking soldiers. The two journalists wondered if it was to do with the party of mounted soldiers who had arrived an hour or so previously, escorting the sort of discreetly important looking civilian who had Grand Vizier radiating from him. Another member of the journalistic party had frowned and said he couldn't be sure, but that looks like the Paramount King's personal secretary. His _Speaker of The Royal Word_. Heads the civilian administration. You know, like Drumknott to Vetinari.

Marilyn frowned. She knew the Zulus didn't go in for cavalry much, in the normal way of things. They used horses for convenient speedy travel, yes, to send messengers out and suchlike, but most of the time preferred to go by foot. Horses were usually for older or disabled people as a courtesy to enable them to keep up with the march. _At least, till a Zulu Princess who knew about cavalry and what they can do had come along..._

"It looks like they're tidying up. Getting things looking neat and clean. Reminds me of an Army base finding out the General's on his way." Marilyn said. "Same sort of panic. Something's happening."

Then Chakki found them.

"Su... _Marilyn_." she said. "Listen. You journalists pack a lot of useful essential things for an overseas reporting trip, don't you? Do you know anyone who might have a bottle of Jimkin Bearhugger's Old Macabre we can buy off you?"

"That's a lazy stereotypical assumption, if I may say so." Sacharrisa said, severely. "Based on the prejudice that all journalists are borderline alcoholics who drink too much and never go anywhere without a bottle of rotgut."

Chakki grinned.

"Point taken. Listen. Can I trade you an exclusive for a bottle of Bearhuggers? Guess who's coming to tea? And what he prefers to drink?"

Sacharissa listened intently. She reflected that at least five writers-of-news in the party had brought strong drink with them. Jenkins of the _**Pseudopolis Herald**_ , for one.

"I'll get you the Old Macabre." she said. "There's a Pegasus flight due in the next hour. To collect everybody's updates. Su... _Marilyn_ – could you write this up for us both? Put both our names to it? Thanks."

 _ **Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork.**_

"Anything out of the ordinary, Carrot?" Sam Vimes asked, meeting his deputy on the starway leading down to the Yard's reception area.

"Nice quiet summer day, sir." Carrot reported. "Quite relaxed, people getting out into the sunshine, everybody inclined to be nice – well, _nicer_ – to each other. Just the usual sort of incidents you get on a day like this. Men who drink too much in the beer garden outside the pub, minor public order offences, and the usual incidents of, err... well, young ladies tend to wear lighter clothing and some men get, err, _overcome_..."

Vimes sighed.

"Gropers and grabbers. How many have we booked today?"

"Thirty-three, sir. One of them tried to grope Officer Yuri. She got rather Ephebian on him."

Vimes sighed. He looked at Carrot.

"She _did_ keep her helmet and sunglasses on, sir. And she was very restrained when she made the arrest."

Vimes shook his head.

"Yuri does look normally female. From behind." he remarked, visualising his Gorgon constable's likely reaction to a sex pest. But Ephebian women could get fiery when provoked... plate-smashing would be the least of it.

Then they heard voices from an interview room. Vimes stopped, and listened.

"Married couple, tourists from abroad visiting the City, sir." the Watchman said. "There was a robbery attempt. They're giving witness statements."

Vimes and Carrot exchanged glances. They had recognised first the accent. And then Vimes' mental filing system produced an identity for the speaker.

"Better go in." he said to Carrot.

 _ **The Maul, Ankh-Morpork, a little earlier.**_

"Well, now." The old woman said, in a funny foreign accent. "You want me to hend over my beg end my money end my jewellry."

"That's it exactly, lady." said Brandwyn Diptree, freelance Thief. "And that Thieves Guild immunity badge you're wearing means nuthin' 'cos I ain't Guild, see? In fact, I'll have that too, it's worth a dollar..."

He'd been watching the old lady for a few minutes now. Pushing seventy, white hair suggesting she might have started out as a redhead. Back straight, moved like a woman twenty years younger, but still no match for him if she struggled... he'd have her bag in no seconds nothing...

The old lady glared at him with disconcertingly unfrightened eyes.

"So you think I should hend these things over to you justnow? Just because you say I should?" she demanded. She shook her head slightly. " _Jislaik_."

"And who's gonna stop me, lady? _You_?"

The old lady smiled slightly.

"Oh, _I_ won't." She said. Then she nodded.

"No need. My husband, however, _will_."

Brandwyn Diptree had a sudden sinking feeling something was not going to work out exactly as planned. It was the last coherent thought to go through his mind for some time.

"Andreas? _Moenie hom doodmaak nie. Dankie_." the old lady said, in a strange foreign language.

* * *

"And thet is whet heppened, Sir Samuel." Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes said. "Ag. Turn my beck on my good lady wife for a few minutes end somebody threatens her end tries to rob her. I was not heving thet. Not et ell."

Sam Vimes studied him intently. The thief would recover. In a week or two, maybe. But trying to mug Agnetha Smith-Rhodes. Vimes decided that you had to be stupid or desperate. He glanced over to where Mrs Smith-Rhodes was placidly sitting, sipping a cup of tea a Watchwoman had brought her. He also suspected that even if Barbarossa had not been nearby to intervene, Agnetha herself might not have proven an easy mark. Not at all. Hell. Look at her children. Her _daughters_ , especially. _And these days, her grand-daughters..._

Vimes tried to put the thought out of his head that Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande, pink hair and all, was back in town for an indefinite period, _this_ time with diplomatic immunity. He focused on the immediately apparent.

"You, shall we say, _restrained_ the attacker, made a citizen's arrest, handed the offender over to the Watch and then elected to come here of your own free will to make a witness statement. Thank you."

Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes nodded at Vimes, amiably. Vimes supressed an idle thought as to how many trolls it would have taken to subdue him, had Barbarossa needed to be brought to the Yard _against_ his will.

"So I em not under errest, then."

"Hells, no! You had right on your side. I'm more inclined to offer you a handshake and a slap on the back, frankly."

"Thet's good, thet's good. We hev dinner tonight et my oldest daughter's. Good to see Johanna, end to be a good grendfether to my three fine girls there. The hecksie, the hooligan, end the incredibly clever one."

Vimes tried not to wince at the mention of _the hooligan_. Who had got a lot further on her Vimes Run than most student Assassins managed – and found an original approach. He suspected Famke was going to be one to watch as she grew older; he'd already pencilled her onto his list of Assassins Who Might Be Trouble. Barely twelve years old. But intelligent anticipation today saved time tomorrow.

"I believe you've got a new nephew?"

Barbarossa beamed with pride.

"Big healthy boykie. Like his father. We are steying with their parents, my son Danie end his lovely lady wife."

Agnetha Smith-Rhodes nodded over with contented satisfaction, which Vimes noted was that of a mother-in-law who is shaping things up to her _complete_ satisfaction. Barbarossa added "I hope to see him grow up, if I'm spared. Promises to be a fine young man!"

Sam Vimes shook hands with Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes and assured him the Watch would pick the hapless unlicenced Thief up from the Lady Sybil when he was fit to be transferred to a cell – more sort of protective custody, really, as the Thieves Guild don't like people like that – and he escorted Barbarossa and Agnetha to the street.

Back in the Yard, he exhaled resignedly. Johanna. Her three daughters. Two nieces who were Guild graduates, one adoptive, admittedly, but Emma Roydes had the Smith-Rhodes stuff. Johanna's sister who occasionally visited. _Like their parents._ Her brother. Married to an Assassin. And now they had a son... _up to eleven Smith-Rhodeses. In my city._ Vimes sighed and resigned himself to the bang. Or bangs.

 _ **The City of the Ingonyami, the Zulu Empire**_

The Press contingent had been escorted to a section of the new stone wall that overlooked the plain outside. Iconographic machines had been set up and imps primed. They had been told to take all the pictures they liked.

And there was a lot to iconograph.

Marilyn van der Medelnder silently went "Wow!", although ancestral memories and deep-down genes were screaming at her to fight or run like Hell, never mind marking your man or holding your line, there's one of you, and the best part of ten thousand of _them_ out there...

They were in serried ranks by impi. Zulu warriors in full regalia with head-dresses. Ten thousand assegais, mainly held by male warriors. Marilyn noted a good couple of thousand were _women_ , however. That was new. And the tallest, hardest-looking, warriors had pride of place in the middle of the line. Marilyn had been told this was the personal Guard regiment of the Paramount King, who by convention paraded in pride of place. The women soldiers had been displaced to either side – Marilyn knew thay were Ruth's household troops – and lots and lots more male warriors, those commanded by Denizulu, paraded to the flanks of them, the Horns of the Bull.

And out on either flank, fighting cavalry, both light and heavy, Ruth N'Kweze's personal innovation to Zulu warfare.

Marilyn van der Medelander took on the specatcle. Inside her, Suki van der Graaf, a Vondalaander here with fake ID, gibbered with fear, but forced herself to take lots of iconographs, especially of the women cavalry. They might buy her freedom when she got back Home and had to admit she'd been in the Zulu Empire. BOSS wouldn't like that. Pictures of the soldiers who were giving prominently placed people a few sleepless nights would be an insurance policy. **(2)**

Next to her, Sacharissa Cripslock was impressed. Ten or eleven thousand soldiers ranked in line occupy quite a lot of space. Another five or six thousand civilians - at least – were gathered on either flank of the armies, keeping a respectful distance. And all eyes were fixed on the tower...

Sacharissa nodded to the doorway connecting the walkway to the tower. A very large Royal Guardsman was posted there standing guard, and politely dissuading the journalists from coming too close. Given who was actually at the top of the tower, this was only to be expected.

Sacharissa and Marilyn were trembling with journalistic excitement. The most powerful people in the Zulu Empire were maybe twenty feet away. At the top of the tower. The Paramount King _himself_. And his daughter. The Chief Assassin of the Empire was there too, and she was also a daughter. His Speaker Of Royal Truth. General Denizulu. If only they could get a personal interview with the Paramount King himself...

"You know, if an Assassin could lob a bomb into the top of that tower, it would take out the whole Empire. For us, the scoop of a lifetime." somebody murmured.

"Do not even _joke_ about that." somebody else said, urgently. Marilyn looked up. Birds that looked like vultures were lazily circling overhead, riding on the thermals with outstretched wings. There were a _lot_ of them. She shivered again, People she'd spoken to had said those were _more_ than vultures. She'd heard about the previous intrusion into Ruth's airspace. She was, after all, a very good information-gatherer. If Crowbar Dreyer were to attempt another aerial approach...

And then Zazu the Speaker of the King's Truth stepped forward. And the world went silent.

" _Ahhhh... zabenya!"_

A journalist nearby to Marilyn frowned and looked puzzled.

"He's the manager of Quirm St Germain, isn't he? You know. _Arsène Weneger."_

Sacharissa did the thing with her forehead and the palm of her hand.

"Never send a sports journalist on a trip like this." she muttered. "Their brains can't cope if it's not foot-the-ball."

Marilyn listened, spellbound.

 _Nants ingonyama bagithi baba!_ _  
_ _Sithi m'ingonyama!_ _  
_ _Ingonyama_ _!_

 _Siyo Nqoba_ _!  
Ingonyama!  
_ _Ingonyama nengw' enamabala_ _!_

The Speaker led the chant. It was taken up by thousands of voices and echoed and re-echoed.

" _Jislaik..."_ Marilyn said, faintly, forgetting that here she was a Kerrigian. Kerrigians, as a rule, did not exclaim in Vondalaans.

"I want to know what that song _means_." Sacharissa Cripslock said. "And have you noticed the men and the women are singing different parts?"

A Zulu minder stepped up to her. He was a young graduate Assassin who had spent seven years in Ankh-Morpork.

"It is a traditional song of our people, madam. With a few new twists Her Highness wanted. It celebrates the birth of one who will be a lion unto his people and a defender and a comfort to his lionesses. The Speaker announces "Here is a lion!" to which the people respond "Yes indeed, he is truly a lion!" and then all sing "One born to conquer!" The next part of the song welcomes the newborn to life, and hopes his passage through the circle of his life will be happy, wealthy and marked by wisdom. That he achieves great things as he passes round the great circle. Errr."

The singing went on. This time accompanied by beating of spears on shields and foot-stamping. From thousands of warriors. Marilyn fought down the ancestral fear of thousands of Zulus with spears singing a war chant, and relaxed into the singing and the rhythms. It was oddly stirring and even beautiful, once she, as a Vondalaander, got past the obvious pineapple in the fruit basket.

The Zulu minder nudged her, and said "You may in a moment care to point the iconograph upwards, miss."

It wasn't an ideal place to take a picture from. But Marilyn noted Otto Chriek had realised first, and had retreated a long way down the wall so as to get the best angle. She ran to join him, hoping her own iconograph would be good enough.

Angling their machines over the heads of the other journalists, they got good shots of the people on the top of the tower, and captured Ruth N'Kweze, Paramount Crown Princess, as she stepped forward and lifted her newborn son high so that the People could see.

The crowd didn't roar. Beating of spears on shields ceased. The sound was more one of a collective sigh from several thousand throats.

" _Wunderbar!"_ Otto exulted. "Are you getting a good view, miss van der Graaf?"

Marilyn winced. But the noise had been _loud_... and most of the other journalists seemd to have found out. But they'd closed ranks and were keeping a colleague's secret, respecting that she'd stuck her neck out a _long_ way to be here and to report on this.

Otto realised. He grinned, sheepishly, even as he re-angled the iconograph machine to take shots of the incredible sight of thousands of people falling to their knees to suitably honour the new Prince. Some were even prostrating themselves.

"Ah. Perhaps I mistook you for another, fraulein van der Medelander." Otto apologised, hastily. He was still taking iconographs, manipulating several machines simultaneously with vampire speed.

Ruth was speaking now, her voice carrying. They heard their minder quietly translating...

 _To you, my beloved people. I present a son. One who is called Wisdom. One born to lead. I will guide him. I will steer him. I will teach him what it means to be royal and of the Paramount House of the Clan of Ceteswayo..._

"Boffo." Sacharissa said. Her pencil was busily scratching shorthand on the pad. " _Royal_ boffo, mind you. She's delivering it well, though. And nobody here is ever going to forget."

And then the real scoop happened. The kind of thing that would have made the renowned seeker-of-news Suki van der Graaf, were she to be present, squeal "What a story!" It even made Marilyn van der Medelander squeal _"_ _wat een verhaal!"_ **(3)** in very careful Kerrigian.

The crowd hushed. The Paramount King, the absolute ruler of the Empire, had stepped forward to stand next to his daughter and his grandson. He had been quietly standing in the background. Till now.

And even at nearly seventy, Mpandwe still commanded respect. Marilyn felt the strength and charisma of the man from thirty-odd yards away. Tall. Fat, but carried it well. The still presence of a man who commanded obedience.

They watched him rest a hand on his daughter's shoulder. It signalled acceptance, respect, even a father's love.

And the Paramount King scanned his audience, judging his moment to speak. Marilyn felt his eyes pass over the journalists. They might have rested on her for a moment. Marilyn felt uneasy. This was a man who, if he found out her secret, could over-rule Ruth and have her executed. It wasn't a comforting thought. For a fraction of a second she wondered if he _did_ know. He could so easily have found out...

Zazu the Speaker opened his mouth to Speak. Mpandwe looked at him and shook his head, very slightly. The Speaker did not speak.

But the King did.

The Zulu minder translated his words in a low respectful voice. Saharissa scribbled, excitedly.

 _In front of my people, in front of the warriors of the Lioness Impi, in front of the Army of my beloved son in law Denizulu, in front of my own loyal Guard, and in the eyes and ears of the World, hear the words of the King!_

 _Tales of my demise are false and empty words. I am not senile. I am not planning to meet Ganab the Black Archer at any time soon. I intend to rule my people for many years yet._

 _But all men die. Even kings. I have listened to wise counsel from those who have urged me to nominate my sucessor and heir, so that there is no possible room for doubt. No uncertainty and no war in the Empire. No space for argument. I accept the rebuke that I have been remiss in not appointing my Heir, the one who takes the Paramount Throne after my death. And yes, even a King may be rebuked. When he fails to act decisively and surely and allows false ambition to rise among those who seek to suceed him._

 _Empire of the Zulus, hear my words! Those of you who will shortly leave here and take my words to the wider world, hear me!_

 _I name my Heir on this joyous day. So that all will know and all will obey. My daughter, the Paramount Crown Princess, has well repaid my trust in her. Is she not a victor in battle? Did she not once chastise the insolent Matabele on a battlefield where she was the only Zulu, but fought as if she were ten, and slew twelve of the Matabel? Did she not being victory over proud Muntab and lead an army to triumph? Did she not fight and slay a terrible serpent creature of black muti, though she was heavy with child?_

 _Well has the Princess Ruth repaid my trust. And her husband, the sun to her moon, my beloved Denizulu, who today receives a son who will grow to be as mighty as his parents._

 _We have seen the Prince Nipho being presented to his people._

 _And today I rule. Not one of my sons will be King after me. Nor will it be a daughter who ascends as Queen. My heir is the Prince Nipho who will be Paramount after me. Acknowledge and show fealty to the Heir!_

Marilyn saw Ruth start with something like surprise and wide-eyed horror, although she quickly resumed an impassive stone face. Chanting, stamping and shield-beating resumed. It appeared the crowd was all in favour of the Heir.

Mpandwe called for silence.

 _I rule that should I die before the Heir reaches the age of manhood, his mother, the Paramount Crown Princess, becomes Queen Regent and rules the Empire in his name, till he become a man and she then stands down. My daughter has well repaid my trust in her and I charge her with this duty, should it become necessary._

 _Now I decree the ceremony at an end. Let us now move to feasting and expressing our joy at this day!_

The King stood back and said something inaudible to Ruth. She listened, then nodded. He clapped her on both shoulders, then leaned forward to kiss her, taking care not to trap the Heir in between them. Then he turned to Denizulu, and the two men clasped hands.

"There's our story!" Sacharissa said.

" _Wat een verhaal!"_ Marilyn said.

Then the message reached them that the King commanded Otto Chriek to attend upon him, and to bring the wondrous picture-making machine.

"He wants a few pictures for the family album." Chakki N'Golante said. "Oh, and he gives permission for them to be published in the papers. Can you send him copies?"

 _ **The Opera House, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, Witch, chose her time to walk confidently up to the stage door, moving through the crowd of fans and admirers clustered there, letting the black pointy hat advertise that she had a right to do this. People in Ankh-Morpork had come late to the idea of what a black pointy hat meant, but tended to respect it. And most importantly, to respect the woman who wore it. People like Mrs Proust and like Olga and Irena had ensured the message was received and understood.

There were some gumbles, but the young Witch got as far as the stage door and did battle with the Guardian of the Threshold. This was the tricky bit.

"Here, miss, you can't..."

"I'm here to see Perdita. You know. Agnes Nitt." Bekki said. She tapped the brim of the hat meaningfully.

"Miss Nitt's a _star_. She don't just see anybody who walks in off the street, any old random fan..."

Bekki tapped the brim again. She glared at the stage door porter.

"Did I say I'm here as a fan? This is Witch business. She _will_ see me."

Bekki had seen older witches get emphatic. She'd also seen her mother getting emphatic. She channelled Johanna Smith-Rhodes as hard as she could. Mum had a _knack_ for getting into places by force of personality.

Bekki remembered something Irena had said and cross-referenced it to one of Nanny Ogg's tales of visiting the City.

"Mr Flitch, isn't it? Mrs Ogg from Lancre asked to be remembered to you. She mentioned you had a _little problem_ she was treating. Has it cleared up yet?"

The porter slumped. He knew when he was not being threatened, and a witch was making a point of asking after his health. He was not a stupid or an incautious man.

"Straight down the corridor, miss, and turn right. Big dressing room with her name on the door."

Bekki made a point of smiling graciously.

"Thank you, Mr Flitch." she said, and walked on down the corridor.

Agnes Nitt was not alone in the dressing room. Bekki knocked, walked in, and glared at the fussy little man in the suit until he concluded his business and went away. He probably knew about witches too.

Agnes, a big wide woman, looked amused. She'd recognised _pointy hat_ too. The two witches politely bowed to each other. Agnes indicated the teapot. Bekki understood, and as the younger witch, poured the tea for them both.

"You _do_ know that was Mr Bucket, who _owns_ the Opera House?" Agnes asked, politely. Bekki shrugged.

"I didn't. No. But at least _he_ knows we're both witches."

"True." Agnes agreed. They sipped their tea. Agnes asked about Lancre and mutual friends there. Bekki brought her up to date. Eventually they got to the point, but in a leisuredly all-the-time-in-the-world way, as good manners between Witches dictated.

"So what brings you here?" Agnes asked. She seemed quietly amused, and intrigued. "I know if Nanny Ogg wanted me back in Lancre, to drop everything and do anything time-consuming and inconvenient, she wouldn't send somebody else with a message. She'd turn up herself."

Bekki smiled slightly.

"I really, really, need your advice." She said. "How do you _not_ be a witch?"

Agnes gave her a long look. Then she said

"You can't _not_ be a witch. Once you're in, you're in. Unfortunately."

"Let me explain." Bekki said. "You're a Witch. But you aren't _active_ as a Witch. You've found something else to do. I'd really love to know how you do it. You know, to be a professional singer and not let the witch-stuff take over. Not to actively practice. I'm happy doing what I do. I'm enjoying it. I'm _really_ asking about my little sister. Can I tell you about her?"

Bekki explained about her sister Ruth and the way magic was starting to surface in her. About her fight in the Dungeon Dimensions. That usually heralded magic, didn't it, when _They_ take an interest? How do I help Ruth through it, when she's got magic but I think she's, you know, not inclined to become a witch as such, she's got other things occupying her time? How do _you_ do it?

Agnes listened, attentively and sympathetically.

"And she can see and talk with your dead relatives too." she said.

Agnes turned her head slightly and spoke to what a non-magic user would have dismissed as empty air.

"Hello, we've not been introduced." she said. "I take it you're related to Bekki?"

" _Good efternoon, Miss Nitt. A pleasure to meet you. I'm Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes, by the way. I should call by to this place, end watch you perform, I think!"_

"The evening performance is at seven-thirty." Agnes said, graciously. "Tell me about Ruth?"

" _Maar. We cen make her aware we are there. We have spoken, ja. But she is only a child, end a shy retiring girl. Most of the time she lives in her own world, with her art end her music end her ideas. We do not force ourselves on her, you understend."_

Agnes nodded, thoughtfully. She listened and asked more questions. Perceptive ones.

"Ruth needs some training in magic." Agnes said. "Even if she doesn't intend to actually _use_ it. Something you've got, and don't know how to use, can be dangerous. So at some level she needs witch training. Guidance, anyway. And you're right in saying that magic can drive you absolutely spare if it builds up and can't be discharged. She really needs a lightning conductor to discharge it safely. For me, that's singing. And music. That helps me burn it off. So we've got something in common there."

Agnes smiled.

"look, I've got to start getting ready for the next show." she said. "But I'd like to help. Witch to witch. Would your parents mind if I call round? Introduce myself, get to know your sister a little?"

"Thank you." Bekki said, sincerely.

Agnes Nitt patted her shoulder.

Glad to help." she said. "Truly."

* * *

FAO Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes

By secure internal Guild mail.

"Well, that's it, Johanna. They made you a Dame and a Lady. I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to end up as a Queen. Father is not going to last forever and on past family form, he'll drop suddenly one day, and the kingeon particles will fly to Nipho.

"Being Queen Regent and running a country might look good on a CV but I'm not sure if I want it. At least, not just yet. Good points; it makes my mother the Great Wife by default. Grandmother of the Heir. Which means the other wives will start getting jealous and Scheming. I've sent a good person, Guild-trained, to be a lady-in-waiting to Mother, to keep her bodyguarded and safe.

"And I also want Nipho safe. He's going to be a target to some people. I have put the word out that if anybody even _thinks_ of hurting my son, they are _dead_. With extreme prejudice. I will need to have him guarded twenty-four and eight. When he is eleven, he goes to the Guild school. I'm sure they'll find him a place. But until then he is going to be guarded.

"Oh, and all my half-brothers and half-sisters are being summoned to the Royal Kraal to swear allegience to the Heir. That will be fun. At least six of my brothers will need watching as they'll all be furious. And I'll need to stamp my authority on them if I end up as Queen Regent and they're inclined to challenge me. They will, of course.

"But. Oh well. This is the sort of thing the Guild trains us for.

"Lots of love to Heidi, Danie and little Mattewis. Maybe he and Nipho will end up at the Guild School together in the same year? That should be interesting!

"All my love, missing you and the family and Ankh-Morpork.

"Ruth. Just plain and simple Ruth, no Princess, and definitely not a Queen. Right now I feel like a pawn that made it to the other edge of the board..."

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 **(1)** go to my story _**Hyperemesis Gravidarum**_

 **(2)** Ruth had shrugged and said "Take as many pictures as you like. We _are_ parading in public, after all, so we can't complain about that. And people like Crowbar Dreyer read the papers. we'll work around that. Besides, you haven't just commited a crime in _this_ country by coming here. A few holiday snaps to take home might save your arse."

 **(3** ) Suki would have squealed _"_ _wat 'n storie!"_ and given her nationality away. It was just as well Marilyn was there.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas, the Heirs who may inherit future stories.**_

Playing with the barely-there idea hanging on from _**Hyperemesis Gravidarum**_ , in which Emmanuelle de Lapoignard, looking for a family home for herself and incipient infant, first buys Number Four Spa Lane, seeing advantages to living on the same street as two colleagues and friends.

Following a certain regrettable incident, the family at Number Sixteen, already nervous at having Davinia Bellamy and Johanna Smith-Rhodes as neighbours on either side, moves out. In a hurry. With Sixteen suddenly vacant, and Emmanuelle now having lots of money at her disposal inherited from her deceased mother-in-law (her absentee husband, who has title, has given her a blank cheque to purchase a family home in Ankh-Morpork and leaves it entirely to her), she decides Number Sixteen is perfect, as it puts her in touch with good neighbours. She buys a nice suburban property in a nice area, albeit one now in need of some minor repair, and moves in.

Which leaves the problem of what to do with now-redundant Number Four.

I have her resolving this problem by sub-letting to young graduate Assassins who are working in Ankh-Morpork, with priority given to those employed at Guild headquarters on Filigree Street, who cannot secure live-in accommodation there. And of course, to fellow Quirmians in the big city.

There is room for storylines here: young people in a house-sharing situation with a largely benevolent landlady who understands life's little foibles.

But how to develop this…

Over on TV tropes, I have just written a works page for a maddeningly watchable French sitcom called _Les Filles d'à côté_ .

It shouldn't be so watchable. Not at all. It's a cheap show with mediocre production values, a shoddy knock-off of _**Friends**_ , churned out on a production line with correspondingly low production values. Yet it was and remains, in re-runs, a massive hit in France. My review reads:

Where do I start? I'm British. This is a French sitcom. Where did I meet it? How do I even know about it? Scroll back a year or two. Seven floors up in a clifftop hotel in Folkestone, England, while a really Grand Guignol thunderstorm played out over the English Channel. Finding it impossible to sleep at midnight, I resorted to the TV set and discovered that when you're on the south coast of England (France is actually visible on a good clear day), then French TV - and to an extent Belgian - can be received loud and clear. This was an exotic revelation. If nothing else, I discovered French TV is, in the main, every bit as mediocre as British. And I tuned into the sort of TV station that must be the French version of Channel Dave, as it showed nothing but repeats of old sitcoms and cartoons on a sort of moebious loop.

And this show came on.

Now I can speak and comprehend French up to a certain level. Which is useful. And I arrived halfway through a show that instantly screamed "SITCOM!" at me: i honestly thought at first it was a French remake of _Friends_ as the same sort of vibe was happening - expensive looking apartment, big and spacious, inhabited by - I counted them - three men and three women of a thirtysomething aspect. Other characters came and went, but there were these six core people who were there all the time. I started tuning in. Nothing wildly original at all. Just Up to Eleven sitcom stock characters running through the standard sort of plots. It wasn't hard to see why it hasn't been subbed/dubbed into English or sold for overseas remakes. A knock-off of "Friends" with a side-salad of "Three's A Crowd/Three's Company". But there was still something indefinably charming/pleasant about it.

I al wondered if this was a case of TV Tropes having ruined my life - oui, je parle francais, oui, je le comprends bien. But the sitcom formula was so strong here that I felt I could get the idea what was going on by just watching and ticking off tropes, even if I spoke no French at all. Wikipédia francais says this show only ran for fifteen months - but they still made 170 episodes. That's three a week. Three. A week. So this explains the lack of originality or decent scripts or on occassion good acting. But damn. It grows on you. Even after returning Oop North outside the reach of French TV I started looking it up on youTube. It has its charm. And Cécile Auclert, who now joins the ranks of memorable French actresses, even though she is not in the same league as Huppert, Deneuve, Beart or Girardot (Now a young Annie Girardot in this sitcom - she'd have cracked it.) . Good for learning or improving French from!

Maybe it's this thing I've got for French actresses.

Anyway. A central premis. Those six single-ish people working out the dynamics of being neighbours. And "Quirmian".

This could well be parodied in Four Spa Lane with six recent Assassin graduates, three female, three male, one a Gérard…

 _Les Assassines d'à côté …_

A footnote useful for when I return to long-stalled tale _**Clowning is…,**_ about the war in Clowndom. Useful for background on Far Überwald and the insane degrees of dress code for the "Russian" nobility: Tsar Paul, heir to Catherine the Great, routinely despatched nobles to Siberian exile for the slightest little things, like wearing the wrong sort of buttons for their social rank…


	45. Opvolging

_**Strandpiel 45**_

 _ **Opvolging – Succession**_

 _ **(**_ **Impulmelemo** _ **in isiZulu, apparently)**_

 _ **Here we go again... the latest chapter of the monster saga of inter-related family and friends of two continents. Still looking to bring it to some sort of a natural close... might take a while yet... fSecond draft with a lot of typos spotted and corrected and minor revisions.  
**_

 _ **I was privileged to watch the Wales-South Africa rugby match at the weekend, in the company of South Africans. An exhibition game played in Washington DC with the intention of communicating rugby to Americans and popularising the sport there (The USA does in fact have a handy side, viewed internationally as being in the second or third tier down from the Big Eight Or Nine. They apparently beat England once, but then, everybody does.) I suspect at least 80% of the crowd in Washington were expat Bokkies or Welsh and the Americans present were in the usual bemused state of fascination at watching the parent game of what North America calls football – vaguely familiar and bewildering at the same time. As one American said to me once – don't you guys ever use helmets or body armor? Well – a sort of head-padding in the scrum, yes, and, er, personal protection where it's needed.. otherwise it slows you down. Gets in the way. (Hmm. Acerian Rules Football. Wearing armor. Might be interesting as a side-story...) also lots of Bokkie Babes being vocal. That was pleasing too.**_

 _ **Yes. An evening fixture, our time. A braai was indeed involved. With community singing. With perhaps fifty Saffies and five Welsh people present. I was perhaps the only person there who knew the words to**_ **both** _ **national anthems. "Hen wlad fy nhadau" and then "N'khosi sikeleli'Afrika/Uit de blou...". This aroused interest.**_

 _ **And... yes. Most of the people around me sang the first verse of the South African national anthem, as best they could, out of a sort of politeness and well, it's the national anthem, isn't it? And then when it got to the bridging middle eight, after the repetition of "South Africa" and the change of key... I really hadn't imagined it when I posted that youTube clip of the crowd at a Bokkies game singing the Anthem.**_

 _ **Things got ten times louder and more heartfelt when the language switched to "Uit die blou van onse Hemel, uit die diepte van ons see..."**_

 _ **And I nearly bodged it on the fifth line, where out of habit I started off with "Deur ons ver-verlates vlaktes..." which of course nobody (officially) sings any more. Like addressing those Russian footie fans I met in Manchester as "tovarisch" and calling their city Leningrad, despite another regime change. (Well, they did appreciate the effort and said "nichevo", but still corrected me. St Petersburg these days, and not Leningrad ).**_

 _ **It now switches to English on the fifth line... "Sounds the call to come together, and united we shall stand; Let us live and strive for freedom, in South Africa, our land!"**_

 _ **Two national anthems; four languages. Jislaik. Duw, even.**_

 _ **Anyway. A braai, a lekker bier, the company of bros and meisies, and rugby. Lekker. (And the inevitable Bok van Blerk later, with a side-serving of Pieter Smith, Robbie Wessels and – yes – Ampie)**_

 _ **The Bokkies lost in the last ten minutes when their full-back fumbled a clearance from behind his own goal-line... the ball was intercepted by a Welsh player for possibly the easiest try ever scored in a rugby international. And that winning margin for the Bokkies was wiped out. Danie Smith-Rhodes would not have been pleased. Not at all.**_

 _ **Coming up soon: South Africa versus England. That should be fun. A replay of the Boer War, as always...**_

 _ **On with the story! (mainly exposition but with a few moments of the right sort of absurd).**_

 _ **Update: the Bokkies beat England. This was pleasing to both my Welsh and my adoptive South African sides. Danie S-R was quite chuffed. It made up for last week.**_

 _ **Ankh-Morpork, the Patrician's Palace:-**_

 **From the Sto Plains Dealer (your local newspaper for local, City and international news, wherever you are across the Sto Plains!** _ **(Scrote edition)**_

 _Well, the event kicked off at about four in the afternoon, which was a wise decision on the part of the match promoters as it avoided the mid-day heat of a Howondalandian sun, which can have a massive effect on performance. A capacity crowd of maybe eighteen thousand had packed the arena, all waiting with bated breath to see the unveiling of a newcomer to the team, but one who is likely to make an impact with experience and training, as he grows to maturity as a player in what was described to me as a Game of Throne._

 _And wasn't that crowd in fine voice indeed, as they sang and chanted! There seemed to be an awful lot of Quirm St Germain fans in the stadium, as the chant that rang around the pitch was in honour of the team manager Arsène Wegener. Indeed, one set of the ladies were wearing the QSG colours of red and black, although I did spy the green and white of the Pig Packers worn by another section of the local female followers_ _ **.(1)**_ _Strange how our best sides can attract a passionate overseas following in the most unlikely places!_

 _And the crowd hushed as the Paramount High King of the Empire stepped forward to address them, and I was remided that the fifteen-a-side code is popular in parts of this continent, as I looked on a man with a build too tall for a hooker but with the distinctive look of one who could have been a good second-row forward..._

Lord Vetinari put the newspaper down on top of a pile of periodicals gathered in from all parts of the Disc. The Pegasus Service gathered up-to-the-moment local newspapers from wherever they visited, where such things existed, as part of the regular flow of information into the Palace. More local newspapers came in on the Rail Ways services where an enterprising newsagent at New Ankh Station sold them to people who liked to keep in touch with their home towns. Vetinari liked to read the papers. It kept him appraised of what people elsewhere thought was important.

"I believe the editor of the _Dealer_ placed a low priority on reporting from Howondaland." he remarked. "Not a newspaper with a reputation for international news. Unparelleled for its reporting of all things to do with brassica, and unrivalled for its in-depth perceptive analysis of the commodities and futures markets, where they are concerned with things agricultural and cabbage-related."

Indeed, news from the Zulu Empire was a story buried away on page nine. The big front page story, spreading onto pages two and three **(2),** was about an outbreak of cabbage mange in and around Scrote that was spreading to Sproutington, and had put other centres of the brassica trade on high alert.

"Indeed, sir." Drumknott said. "Advised they could send a reporter out to the Zulu Empire, with all expenses paid, to cover a royal birth, I understand the editor made remark about a bunch of head-hunting savages whose queen is having a baby or something, in a country that doesn't even grow cabbages, how primitive can you get, what could there possibly be in that to interest our readers, who's spare at the moment, oh, it's the closed season for foot-the-ball, let's send our sports reporter, so he can do something to justify his salary."

Vetinari shook his head.

"And thus the _Dealer_ misses a very big story. Which all the other newspapers are covering in some detail, with lots of speculation."

He nodded to the newspapers.

"Some of which is even accurate. Is Lord Downey in the anteroom?"

"Together with Dame Joan, sir." Drumknott confirmed.

"Capital. Show them in, Drumknott?"

Vetinari welcomed the two most senior Assassins genially.

After opening pleasantries, they discussed the news from Howondaland.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Ponder Stibbons returned home to the sound of singing and piano playing. Quite loud singing. It wasn't bad singing, he had to confess. He'd heard it somewhere before; some sort of duet about flowers. He knew without needing to be asked that the piano player must be his daughter Ruth. But where were the singers?

"We have a guest, sir." Claude the butler said, opening the door to him. "The celebrated opera performer, and Witch, Miss Agnes Nitt."

"Oh." Ponder said. He'd heard about Agnes Nitt, seen her from a distance occassionally, but hadn't actually met her yet. He sighed. It had been a busy day in the High Energy Magic building: some research postgrads had been excited by the theoretical question of what you might get if you turned a Bag of Holding inside out. The resultant near-catastrophe had taken a while to sort out, and there was every expectation the missing wizards would turn up. Somewhere.

And now.. Ponder followed the not unpleasant singing into the living room. Yes. There was Ruth, playing the piano faultlessly. And the wide imposing presence of a witch dressed all in black. Somehow, she was singing both parts simultaneously. There was a small audience: Johanna and Bekki were watching and listening intently. And Johanna's parents, currently in town for one of their visits. Also Young Johanna, a houseguest. Both housemaids, who were finding things to be seen doing so that they could listen. And... Ponder refocused – a small dapper man in evening dress standing alongside Johanna Francesca and Johanna Cornelia. He sighed. That must be Bekki's music tutor... another ghost in the extended household.

" _Jislaik_." Johanna's father said, as the piece ended. "Thet little meisie hes a telent. _End_ the big one."

Ponder heard a voice say _"Wunderbar!"_ and saw the new ghost produce a spectral handkerchief to blow an insubstantial nose into. He relaxed. A new spirit in the house who was overcome by a faultless performance and who needed to blow his nose. Not a threat, then.

Agnes Nitt stepped forwards. Ponder was somehow reminded of watching a very large warship coming into a comparatively small dock.

"Hello." she said. "You must be Professor Stibbons. Ruth's father. I keep hearing about you, but so far I've never got to meet you."

"Likewise." Ponder replied, politely. Agnes quickly made the witch-bow. He took her hand. A little voice inside his head said _not every wizard gets the bow from a Witch..._

"Bekki invited me over." Agnes said. "Witch to witch. She also wanted me to meet Ruth."

Agnes looked over and smiled. Ruth, happy, smiled back.

Ponder considered. Bekki had invited a new witch to the household to meet people. Especially Ruth. He wondered about the implications of this, and looked across to Johanna. She smiled slightly and nodded at him.

"It is good for Ruth to meet new people." Johanna said. "People who share her interests end eppreciate her ebilities."

"She hes music." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes said. "My grend-daughter _should_ be introduced to other musicians."

"And not _just_ music." Agnes remarked. "Professor Stibbons, I've been talking to Johanna and also to Mrs Smith-Rhodes concerning Ruth, and, well..."

Agnes turned and offered her hand to Ruth.

"I'm sorry. We're talking _about_ you and not _to_ you. That's rude. Please excuse me."

Ruth made the resigned shrug of one who is aware she is often talked _about_ and not _to_. She took the offered hand.

"It's really nice to play for you while you sing. I like that." she said.

"Maybe we can do some more of that." Agnes offered. "You're really talented. If your parents agree, of course. Oh, _and_ your grandparents."

Agnes looked over to Agnetha and Barbarossa. She held Agnetha's eyes for a moment or two. Ponder noticed that Agnes made a point of looking away first, in a manner that suggested she _could_ have out-stared Agnetha Smith-Rhodes, but was graciously conceding on this occassion so as not to cause embarrassment. It was a subtle point. Ponder noted that his mother-in-law smiled slightly, as if she'd got the point concerning Witches.

"Wellnow." Barbarossa boomed. "Ponder's here. What ebout enother song?"

Agnes considered.

"I appreciate you're making the effort to speak to me in Morporkian, and not your first language." she said. "Thank you. _Dankie_ , even. I never learnt to speak too much Vondalaans. Although as a singer you have to learn a lot of songs in languages you aren't fluent in. Just the _songs_. Opera is like that. And operetta. And general performance. About ten years ago, there was a fashion for one song after it caught the public imagination and I had to learn it, and a couple of others, in Vondalaans. People wanted to hear it."

Agnes nodded over to Johanna.

"Something to do with your sister, I understand. Anyway, they wanted me to dress in a costume a bit like the clothes you're wearing now, Johanna. _And_ a red wig." **(3)**

Ponder tried to put the image out of his mind of a very much larger and wider Mariella.

"Does thet sort of thing bother you?" Johanna asked, politely. Agnes shrugged.

"It's the opera mind." Agnes said. "Which even infects musical theatre. I know I wouldn't survive five minutes in the sort of conventional fight you or your sister get involved in. And I'd be a puddle of sweat or I'd drop of heatstroke in a desert or a jungle in the first twenty seconds. But if Opera dictates that an eighteen stone woman **(4)** should dress up as the celebrated fighting Assassin and adventuress Mariella Smith-Rhodes, however ludicrous it looks, then you get into the costume and the long red wig and _sing_. I hope your sister wasn't offended too much."

"Ag. She was emberressed et the ettention." Johanna remembered. "End she hoped it would all blow over es a pessing feshion. But offended. No."

Barbarossa blinked and then convulsed with laughter. Agnetha glared at him. But she also looked amused. He recovered himself.

"I epologise." he said. "It was wrong of me to laugh. But you hed to play the role of my daughter. On the stage. I em pleased my girl became such a celebrated person, do not get me wrong. But did people not see something _strange_ ebout thet?"

Agnes shrugged, in an unoffended way.

"That's _opera_ , Mr Smith-Rhodes." she said, as if that explained everything. "The rules are different. If opera even _tried_ to look like real life, it wouldn't work. Trust me."

"We cen take the red wig es understood, I think." Johanna said. "Besides, there isn't one in the house."

"Thank you." Agnes said. "I had to learn the words in Vondalaans, anyway. Perhaps we should perform it, Ruth? I'm sure you know the piano part."

Singer and pianist briefly conferred. Then Ruth began the piano introduction to a song she'd heard performed at national gatherings all her life. Even though she was not even nine, it was part of her heritage and it was in her blood. The piano playing was flawless and emphatic. The song, already a powerful anthem, had a new depth when performed by a professional opera singer. Especially one with the Witch talent to sing two parts simultaneously.

 _In vuur en bloed vind ek my nou;  
Soos elke boer en kind en vrou,  
'n Oormag kwyl nou oor ons land -  
Staan gewapen tot die tand._

 _Nobody joined in_ , Ponder thought, afterwards. They just _listened_. And afterwards, Barbarossa had shaken Agnes by the hand, and said he hoped Agnes would become a friend of this family.

"Stay for dinner." Johanna said. "There are other people coming over."

 _ **The City Of The Igonyami, The Zulu Empire**_

Ruth N'Kweze turned to the circle of her closest friends and advisors who were gathered around her, in conditions of great security. They wanted complete privacy with nobody listening in.

"Ideas, please?" she said, fighting down the impulse to shout _So what the Hells are we going to do about this?_ She was Queen-Regent Elect, after all. It wouldn't have sounded right from the woman who was now poised to run a whole Empire, whose very word would be law, who would now, should she have had a butler, be addressed by him as _Your_ _Majesty_ and not as _Your Royal Highness_. Ruth knew butlers were the first to promote you and were stickers for the correct honorific. Johanna had complained about Claude stepping her up from _Madam_ to _My Lady_ , when two Damehoods and a Ladyship had been dropped on her all at once. _Claude would just love me right now if I dropped by to dinner_ , Ruth thought. Again she missed Ankh-Morpork.

"It will happen, little sister." Precious Jewel N'Khazi said, flatly. Ruth nodded, resigned. Her older half-sister was one of the few siblings she could absolutely and completely trust. There was even a sort of sibling love between them. They'd been to the same school, for one thing.

"Our father is now seventy. I spend more time at the Royal Kraal than you do and I have been watching him. As a loving daughter should."

"And as an Assassin should." Ruth replied. "Go on, Pee-Jay."

Her sister smiled slightly.

"Father is, to all outward purposes, healthy and vigorous, as a man of half his age. If you'll forgive me for the unpleasant mental image this provokes, his younger wives have no complaints and are audibly very appreciative. Or so we are told."

Ruth tried not to shudder. But this was useful intelligence. She just had to close her ears to the fact it involved her father. _And on occassion, yuk, even maybe my mother. My actual mother._

"A man who is ailing will often first show it when he loses interest in physical pleasure." Sissi N'Kima remarked. She was up and out of bed, although limping heavily and still wearing an ungainly surgical brace to support her healing broken neck. She was thankful for the Igors who had restored her: this was the sort of injury that without Igoring could have left her quadriplegic, paralysed from the neck down. "Madame Emmanuelle taught us this. And _she_ should know."

They surpessed grins. Practically everybody in the room was an Assassins' School graduate.

"However." Precious Jewel went on. "Zazu is looking less smug than usual. As if he realises that when a new Paramount King takes over, his job as Speaker of the King's Truth may end. He is worried. I'd watch him, Ruth. He spends time with your half-brothers, as if currying favour. No doubt now the sucession is declared, he will come to you and swear himself as your loyal man. Don't believe him. I wouldn't."

"Thanks, Pee-Jay." Ruth said. "Look, you don't seem all that convinced that Father is as healthy as he tries to make out? What do you know, big sister?"

Precious Jewel looked grave.

"Zazu can't hide it. At least not as well as he thinks he does. He's worried. And I'm getting whispers that Vetinari, in conditions of some secrecy, sent over a doctor from Ankh-Morpork. Not just any old doctor. Mossy Lawn. _Himself_. And what do you know, within a few days of Father getting a medical examination from probably one of the best doctors in the world, he stops farting around, and finally decides the succession. To my suspicious mind that tells me something is going on."

"And he decides it's going to be Nipho." Chakki N'Golante said. "And he attends Nipho's Naming. And names him as successor there. In front of eleven thousand soldiers who are all going to be fanatically loyal. Especially after he called out the Heroes and awarded Bees."

Sissi N'Kima reached up and touched the golden bee that was attached to her top, in much the same place and for much the same reason that soldiers wore medals. It was flanked by a silver bee, awarded by Ruth.

Only the Paramount King could award a Golden Bee. A stylised honey bee, sculpted in beaten gold, meant the recipient had earned the utmost thanks of the Paramount King, usually for exceptional bravery, and earning renown in combat. And it was more than a bravery medal. It meant the recipient could go to the Paramount King, at any time, regardless of whether the throne had changed hands, and ask a favour. The King was obliged to respond.

Mere princesses and princes could only award Silver Bees. Ruth had apologised for the current lack of elemental silver about the place at the moment, but had awarded the silver-plated assegais to women who had fought for her on the day, hoping these would be accepted as of equivalent worth. Bees would follow. Those few silver bees Ruth actually had to award, ones that had been spared being melted down for anti-were weapons, had gone to people like Sissi, who really deserved them. A second one had gone to the foreign witch Sophie, who had assisted in killing the monster. Sophie had also been presented to her father, who had greeted her warmly, assured her he understood that the white witches kneel to no man and the bow was sufficient respect, and besides you fought for my daughter and my Heir. So here, white witch, is a Golden Bee. You have the love and favour of the Paramount House.

It had all been impressive theatre on the day, and was now in newspapers all over the Disc. Eleven thousand soldiers were now absolutely loyal to the Heir and, by extention, to his Mother. Like Ankh-Morporkian butlers, they'd all been elevated by association, after all. Denizulu was even now forming a new regiment, the household troops of the Crown Prince and Heir. Men were fighting to enlist or transfer.

But Ruth was suddenly worried.

"So Father could be a lot more ill then he's letting on." she said. The implications settled like lead snowflakes.

"That occured to me too." Precious Jewel said. "Your Majesty."

Ruth winced.

 _ **Ankh-Morpork, the Patrician's Palace:-**_

"Of course, Princess Ruth, the Queen-Regent Elect, is now off the Register." Lord Downey said, smoothly. "We have been approached, by several interested parties. This goes without saying. But her completion fee was fixed, after due reflection and recent incidents, at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

Vetinari smiled slightly.

"I will not inquire as to who those interested parties were." he said.

Downey had the feeling Vetinari already knew, damn him.

"That we cannot disclose, my Lord." Downey said. "It is also noteworthy that one of our most able graduates also turned down an informal offer from a foreign government to infiltrate the princess's kraal and perform _certain tasks_ there. She naturally reported the approach to us, as is required of any Guild graduate."

Vetinari heard the impatient snort from Dame Joan Sanderson-Reeves, the Deputy Guild mistress. He smiled slightly again, and remarked

"Indeed. If a graduate of the calibre of Miss Rivka ben-Divorah assesses a contract, attempts in her usual diligent and somewhat innovative way to estimate the dangers and to look for weak points in the client's security that she can exploit, and then goes back to the putative client and frankly tells General Crowbar Dreyer that it is, in her well-chosen words, _bloody impossible_ – then it's impossible. No doubt she then invoiced General Dreyer for a consultation fee."

Vetinari watched Downey and Dame Joan wince slightly.

"And then paid fifty percent in Guild tax on that consultation fee. The level of tax, I believe, is something she complains about. Regularly."

"Indeed, my Lord." Downey said, with a faraway look.

"The fact Princess Ruth's inner circle of advisors and personal assistants is exclusively composed of Guild-trained graduate Assassins is also something that miss ben-Divorah took account of when assessing the mission." Vetinari went on. "She'd have to get through quite a lot of former classmates, before getting _anywhere near_ the Princess. Who she would remember as one of her old schoolteachers. With all that implies."

Joan snorted again.

"It's not as if it's a slackly-guarded Klatchian Army stores depot, where there are only a handful of bored soldiers on guard who aren't expecting anyone to slip in by night, and plant lots of incendiary bombs." she remarked. "I believe Mariella Smith-Rhodes thought twice about this one, too." **(4)**

"Which explains why both ladies are very good Assassins." Vetinari said, pleasantly. "And _living_ ones. They know when _not_ to accept contracts. Well, you have to be congratulated on the quality of your teaching."

Both Assassins tensed. Praise from Vetinari was usually genuine, but also a weapon. It softened you up for the barb to come later.

The Patrician regarded the two most senior Assassins in the Guild thoughtfully.

"The Dark Council's decision to take the Queen-Regent-Elect of the Zulu Empire off the register – _permanently_ – may have had to do with the fact her son is now the Heir to one of the strongest countries in Howondaland, and that, as I see in my notes, the Prince Nipho has been pencilled into Mrs Beddowes' House for his expected year of entry?"

"Indeed, my lord." Downey said. "Royalty on the School Rolls is always desirable. Mrs Beddowes' House is always filled, for preference, with the sons of nobility. And a pupil who by then may be King of an Empire. Prestigious. Rather _us,_ than Hugglestones'."

"And inhuming his mother might well prejudice his family from sending him to the Assassins' School." Vetinari said, drily. "I understand the motivation. Proceed."

"His mother is also a Guild graduate herself, my Lord." Joan said. "Damn fine young woman. Outstanding pupil. I'm quite fond of the gel. Inhuming her would be an awful waste."

Vetinari raised one eyebrow. Joan smiled a humourless smile.

"And besides, my lord, given what we know about the old King, if this hadn't happened there'd be a bloody silly civil war in the Zulu Empire. Not sure there still _won't_ be one, as the boy has at least six ambitious uncles with small armies. But Mpandwe's made his legacy, and said who he wants running the Empire when he goes. We don't want a war there tearing Howondaland apart. They've got the Muntabians on one side spoiling for a fight, the Matabeles on another, and some seriously bad neighbours on a third. Let's say the Empire collapses on itself. The whole bally lot is going to wait for their armies to destroy each other, and then they'll _all_ be in there looking for a slice. Howondaland goes up in a big war. We don't want that."

Vetinari nodded encouragingly. Joan went on.

"Ruth and her sister have been two of the sanest players in the game. Precious Jewel, another damn fine graduate. Our woman in the Empire, by the way. Another reason why Ruth is off-register. If her sister's the Chief Assassin in that country, she will _know_ about any Assassin going in there after Ruth. Causes conflicts. And more problems."

Joan took a sip of the courtesy tea.

"As far as we can see, Ruth and Precious Jewel have been working together ever since Ruth arrived back there. Trying damned hard to stop a civil war happening. To rein in the hotheads. And if they can't be reined in, or if they're damn-fool enough to try to kill Ruth, she deals with them. What's the current bag, by the way? Seventeen of her half-siblings dead or missing and another twenty or so given either a non-lethal warning, or else exiled. I believe one of her brothers was trussed up hand and foot and left on the doorstep of the Klatchian Foreign Legion's recruiting office?"

Joan smiled contentedly. It's always warming for a teacher to hear about a pupil who learnt well and is getting on in the world.

Lord Downey took the theme up.

"We believe it entirely possible, my Lord, that King Mpandwe deliberately engineered this situation, so that the strongest and the most capable of his many children self-selected themselves as candidates for the sucession. Such a struggle would be inevitable in any case. I suspect this is his way of managing it. He may well have had something like this in mind, all along, for Ruth. An education in Ankh-Morpork followed by eleven years living in this city and finding out how it works. Then he commands her home, knowing she would have some anger and resentment to work off. She was allowed to raise her female army. They won the brief war with Muntab. Then she got involved in power politics and became one to watch. She is creating a city, and it is thriving. So she has demonstrated she can run an economy in peacetime as well as lead in war, which is no small thing. The fact daughters can only suceed to the throne in rare and exceptional circumstances is a drawback. But Mpandwe found a loophole. Given what we now know after Doctor Lawn's visit..."

Vetinari smiled an enigmatic smile.

"Doctor Lawn was there at my request, to check on the health of our staff members at the Embassy based at the Royal Kraal." He said. "As a conscientious employer, I _do_ have a duty of care to people from this continent sent to serve in the tropics. If the Paramount King then heard that one of the best physicians in the world was in his kraal, and chose to ask him if he was available for a discreet private consultation, then I do not object to that. The medical alternative, for the King, is apparently the Witch-Finders."

"And the Pegasus Service flew him over." Joan remarked. "Who also carry your diplomatic messages and friendly messages to other heads of state and government throughout the Disc."

"It is true I communicate with Mpandwe." Vetinari said, smoothly. "And that I did urge him, as a matter of some importance, to decide the sucession. As a concerned outsider, I did append a summation of the reasons why the line of succession should be clear and definite, the monarchy should go to a person with the stength and intelligence and presence to use it wisely, a son or daughter who has both will and power to hold the kingship, and see off rivals, without resorting to civil war. Ideally one who has lived and worked in the world outside Howondaland, and who has an international outlook, with well-placed friends and peers in many countries. And also why civil war would be a disaster for Howondaland. I am pleased he heeded my advice."

"Especially after Doctor Lawn's diagnosis." Downey said. He sighed, resignedly.

"Odd to have to call an ex-pupil _Your Majesty_." Joan mused. "Damn, I recall the gel when she was a pupil of eleven. Just simply _miss N'Kweze_."

She shook her head.

 _ **The Royal Kraal, the Zulu Empire:-**_

"Life is full of surprises, Zazu." Paramount King Mpandwe said, pleasantly, to his old friend and personal secretary. In his personal quarters, they could speak freely and informally. Both men appreciated this.

Zazu looked at the King with grave serious eyes. Mpandwe threw back his head and roared with laughter. His belly rippled and rolled. The lion-skin circlet around his brow slipped and went lopsided. The King did not attempt to straighten it as the laughter subsided.

"Why so serious, old friend?" he asked. "As far as I can make out, I'm seventy, maybe a year or two either side. Not important. I've had a good life. Fought in a few wars and lived, become king of a people, married many wives and had moments of joy with them all, fathered many children. It's been good."

His face fell into a frown for a moment.

"Probably too many children. Damn, that wily fox Vetinari was right. And don't look at me like that, Zazu. He wants this continent strong and stable and prosperous, so he can sell us things. But I want this continent strong and stable and peaceful and prosperous _too_. We agree on that. So I'm happy to take his advice, as we are in agreement as to the desired outcome. If not on the exact reasons for that outcome."

"He sent you his personal physician." Zazu said, almost dissaprovingly.

"So?" said Mpandwe. "I preferred this to those scabrous superstitious witch-finders, lining up to kiss my royal arse and reassure me I'm in the finest of health, when for some time now I have suspected I am not. And he confirmed it."

The King motioned for his secretary to bring across the Old Macabre and two glasses.

"Kind of Ruth to get me this. She was always one of the best of the whole rotten bloody bunch." he remarked, pouring a glass.

"Yes. The Paramount Crown Princess." Zazu said. The Speaker was not a man with a head for strong foreign spirits. He contemplated the amber liquid in the glass – a glass, and not a gourd! – with suspicion.

The King grinned.

"My grandson was a gift in so many ways. Especially after the attentive and learned Doctor Lawn discovered there is a thing growing inside me that will kill me within the next two years. Inevitably so. Doctor Mossy Lawn also said it is possible those clever _isangomas_ called Igors might be able to remove the _thing_ inside my belly, but it may well grow back. Not even the Igor-magicians can cure cancer completely, he said."

The king lifted his glass.

"Cheers, old friend. I am ready to go. I will go with dignity, as befits a King. And the best of my children, the one who has proven herself best, by the happiest of chances, succeeds me as Queen. At least till her son is old enough."

"Queen Ruth is certainly strong. And capable, yes."

"She is one of the two who can hold it together, Zazu. She and Precious Jewel. Who told me to my face she has no interest in becoming Queen, but she _does_ have an interest in finding and supporting the best candidate to unite the Empire and avoid civil war. Take my advice, Zazu. Ruth _will_ retire you, and I hope she nominates Precious Jewel as her Speaker. Or one of those clever warrior-girls she nurtures, the impressive ones who went to the same school. She won't kill you, she isn't the sort, but whatever honourable retirement she offers you, _accept it_. It will be generous. And don't go listening to any of her brothers. _It is decided_ , Zazu. Plot treason to the Queen Regent with any of her brothers, and you will have the shortest of retirements, followed by blissful oblivion."

Mpandwe grinned at his old friend.

"Now send me a wife, would you? I am thinking... perhaps Nyokabi. My Great Wife. Like her daughter. A wise head. I need to confide in her that I am dying. Thank you."

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Dinner at the Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons' was relaxed and lively. Other guests had arrived and the dining table was full. Even Famke had been allowed an evening's leave from the Guild School to spend time with her grandparents. Barbarossa, surrounded by his family and a total of four grand-daughters he genuinely loved, was full of booming bonhomie.

"They let you have an evening off now and egain?" he said to Agnes Nitt. She smiled, pleasantly.

"Well, tonight's billed as the understudies' night." she said. "So people who aren't paying attention might be dissappointed if it isn't me on stage. It gives us an evening off and the understudies get to do the main roles. Good for everybody."

Agnes had been discussing music with Ruth and getting to know her. She was quietly impressed. After Ruth had been sent off to bed and Famke packed off in a cab back to the School so as not to miss curfew **(6),** the adults discussed things more.

"She's definitely got some magic." Agnes said. "She's coming up to nine years old and it isn't especially strong yet. I don't think it's going to be anything like as strong in Ruth as it is in Bekki, but it's still there and it still needs to be managed."

"What do you suggest?" Ponder Stibbons asked.

Agnes smiled.

"Well. My feelings are that the same full Witch training Bekki got from the local circle just wouldn't be appropriate here. I really don't think Ruth is cut out or inclined to do steading work or the Lancre circuit. She doesn't seem temperamentally inclined for that. But she's still going to need some guidance. Somebody to teach her to properly read music, for instance. Right now she's doing everything by ear. Spectacularly well, too. But that's the way the magic is working out in her. With me, it was singing. Everything sort of fell into place when I sang. I just knew. With Ruth, it's music and art. She's not been formally trained in both – she just _knows_."

Agnes nodded down the table to Gillian Lansbury.

"You're giving her the formal training in Art, but that's just rounding her out, isn't it? Teaching her the theory, and the common things she needs to know so as to fit in with other artists. She needs somebody like that for her musical side."

"End it would help if thet person were elso a witch." Johanna said, thoughtfully.

"Indeed." said Agnes. "Look, whatever's there now is potentially going to erupt when the _difficult years_ happen. You know. When she's eleven or twelve or thirteen. That's why we get involved when a potential Witch turns eleven or twelve. Otherwise you get uncontrolled magic from somebody who in the normal run of things has a lot going on that she can hardly deal with. Bekki was that age when she started training. People in that position need guidance and supervision. And because Ruth's not really going to be a practicing witch, this is something Olga or Irena or Mrs Proust aren't the best people to help with."

"A Witch, but not one who prectices es a Witch." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes said.

"And you can't stop being a Witch." Agnes said. She sighed, deeply. "It's not uncommon. Johanna, you get people who train as Assassins and qualify as Assassins, but who never practice? But they're still trained to do it, even if they end up doing other things with their lives."

She grinned at Bekki's just-don't-call-him-my-boyfriend Ampie, who was listening with interest. He'd brought his instruments along and had happily played along with Ruth and the others, while Agnes sang. Discovering Ampie's musical talents had thawed things somewhat for Barbarossa, and he had been gruntingly appreciative. Johanna had been relieved that Ruth had persuaded Famke to tone down the drumming, and her contribution had actually been restrained and somewhat harmonious.

"You're a musician. And a good one. I'm betting you won't be an Assassin, you'll end up as a musician who went to the Assassins' School. A world of difference. Well, there are witches who don't do formal witchcraft. Much. I'm a singer who also happens to be able to do witching things when needed, for other people in and around the theatres and the Opera House. Olga and Irena are in the City Watch and have a passion for flight. So they're City Watch and Pegasus Service first, and witches in their spare time. They burn it off in flying for a living. Queen Magrat of Lancre does the Queening. When you think about it, being a Queen is a kind of magic, and that's where Magrat burns it off. I work as a singer and a musician. That's where the magic flares off in me. I would suggest we teach Ruth the skills and awareness she needs to identify and safely handle her own sort of magic. Which she can burn off in Music and Art. And.."

Agnes looked shyly at Johanna and Ponder.

"I like her. Ruth. If you're happy about it, perhaps I can guide her in what she needs to know."

Johanna smiled.

"Ever been a Godsmother before?" she asked.

Agnes smiled.

"Well, I'm in my thirties. I suspect I'm never going to have children of my own. I'm okay about that. But just sometimes..."

"All settled, then!" Barbarossa boomed.

 _ **To be continued.**_

 _ **I had lots more detail planned for the dinner party sequence at Johanna's but I see I'm well over 7,000 words. Ah well, could come back and add things in a revised draft...**_

 **(1)** Ruth N'Kweze had ordered that the subdivisions of her impi were distinguished by their own distinctive colours, so as to foster team spirit, esprit de corps and healthy competition. Red and black were the house colours of Black Widow House at the Assassins' Guild School. Green and white distinguished Tump House. Raven House wore black and yellow. This had a serious purpose but was mainly a private joke on Ruth's part.

 **(2)** the _Dealer_ 's Page Three Girl, the amply built Miss Dorothy Scrimpton from Nether Sproutington, the current Cabbage Queen, occupied most of the page, iconographed in a tastefully revealing costume made of cabbage leaves.

 **(3)** A call-back to my tale _**Gap Year Adventures**_ , where Mariella gave up on reason and bypassed the brains of the people she was trying to organise for a fight. By singing at them, and going straight to the gut. This provoked a trend in Ankh-Morpork when the song hit the public imagination. Mariella was indeed mortified with embarrassment.

 **(4)** Note for Americans and other foreigners: the stone is a perfectly logical measure of weight which is far more sensible than that damned silly method of calculating in contrived decimal-based units like kilograms, or dispensing with the necessary step of fourteen-pounds-makes-a-stone, and calculating personal weight in pounds only. Eighteen stone (British) equals 252 pounds (American) or 114.5 kilos (European).

 **(5)** A callback _**to Gap Year Adventures.**_

 **(6)** Along with the sternest possible warning that she had better arrive at the School by the shortest route with no diversions or escursions, are you hearing me, Famke Cornelia?

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and I'm Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.**_

 _ **I was alerted to the existence of a televangelist called Wendy Alec. Well, I'd read some of her "Chronicle of Brothers" novels and quite liked them; at the time I took my hat off to an author who'd had the idea, the audacious idea, to take the Bible, the story of the Fall of Satan, the Creation, the life of Christ and the promised Armageddon to come (ie, Christian chronology) and treat it as if it were another genre of fantasy fiction, whole and entire within its own framework. She brings in St Augustine, Dante and Milton along the way – and damn, when the Bible is treated as fantasy fiction like this by an imaginative author, it makes a pretty good story.**_

 _ **It turns out she IS a believing evangelical Christian of the right-wing "Jesus votes Republican, Israel is to be unconditionally supported in everything as this is God's will, liberalism, socialism and feminism consign your soul to Hell, and speaking of God, He needs all your money, send it to us" variety.**_

 _ **She's also South African.**_

 _ **Damn. A female televangelist with rock-chick looks (she could easily front Fleetwood Mac) and a South African accent. What she preaches is horrendous. It's interesting her televangelist TV network was allowed to set up in South Africa with state approval some years prior to the end of apartheid, for instance. And some of its views are what you might expect to hear. But damn, I could watch and listen to her for ages. She also gets a lot of flack from other right-wing Christian televangelists for daring to be a female intruder into their world, does she not know God decreed women be silent in church and do not presume to lead or command men? And in a world where those who command morality on others but whose personal moral compasses are broken, and then plead for special consideration when they get found out… well, her own background is questionable too. Equal-opportunity hypocrisy/human frailty?**_

 _ **But. Having seen this lady in action… I must write bits of her into my Discworld. Somehow. A slightly more intelligent Sarah Palin from South Africa. Priceless.**_

 _ **Question – have right-wing Christians denounced Terry as Satanic and burnt any of his books, for the usual depressing sorts of reasons?**_

 _ **Art is how we decorate space; music is how we decorate time. Priceless quote.**_


	46. Innerlike stryd

_**Strandpiel 46**_

 _ **Innerlike stryd – Inner conflicts**_

 _ **Here we go again... the latest chapter of the monster saga of inter-related family and friends on two continents. Still looking to bring it to some sort of a natural close... might take a while yet... as always, first draft for publication. Revisions will happen later. And even then I'll still miss something.**_

 _ **On with the story!**_

 _ **In which the Witch Trials are about to happen.**_

 _ **The ruling princes and princesses of the Zulu Empire have to accept a new reality and some are not happy with it.**_

 _ **And Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons develops a friendship with not only Agnes Nitt but also Perdita. And Anri Yolande begins to emerge.**_

 _ **Bekki considers her next move. But first she has to do basic training with the Watch and begin getting her Pegasus Boetjie ready for fully piloted flight...**_

 _ **The Air Watch Station, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork**_

"It won't be too long now." Bekki Smith-Rhodes said to Sophie Rawlinson, as they groomed and stabled their Pegasi.

Sophie nodded in barely-restrained excited anticipation. They'd spent a pleasant afternoon fitting their soon-to-be mounts with their first sets of tack, the harnesses having just been received from a very specialised leatherworker, who was retained by the City to perform the exacting task of fitting winged horses with extremely specialised saddlery. Working around the wing-roots was not something a saddler did every day.

Both horses had, quite literally as it turned out, bridled at the feel and initial discomfort of unfamiliar leatherwork, and had needed a lot of patient encouragement from their mistresses. It was necessary, Sophie and Bekki agreed: the next stage, once the Pegasi were fully grown – and that wouldn't be too long now – was for them to get used to saddle cloths and saddles. And then the necessary panniers. These things had to be taken in small increments.

"Tack like this must cost." Sophie had said, thoughtfully. It necessarily had to be bespoke. With _these_ mounts.

Bekki patted Boetjie's neck. Her growing colt nuzzled her trustingly.

"The City's paying." she said. "Necessary investment. After all, we'll be working for the City."

Sophie nodded, thoughtfully. Then the other thing came into her mind, the one both girls were trying not to think about.

"Watch training." she said. Both of them winced. Thirteen weeks in barracks, to get the necessary grounding, and pass out as Probationary Lance-Constables (Air Police). This, they had been told, was non-negotiable. They had had the incredibly good fortune to be bonded to Pegasi, the rare and valuable flying horses. Once a Pegasus bonded to a Witch, the bond was made for life. Pegasi were the property of the King of Lancre, who graciously loaned them to the City of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari then dictated their use. He accepted that the first two Pegasi had been "born" in Pseudopolis Yard after a happy accident involving a gorgon and a nose-bleed, and two Watch Witches with an interest in flight had been the first humans they saw. Therefore they had been added to the Air Police strength **. (1)** The City Watch duly had a stake, and Vetinari happily accepted that the Watch was entitled to use them for what passed as normal policing in Ankh-Morpork. Another almost-an-accident – Nanny Ogg had been involved – had seen the first male Pegasus doing what came naturally with a normal mare in a field in Lancre. It had been realised that a mating between a Pegasus and a normal horse could well result in a remarkable foal. Born in Lancre. As indeed had all other subsequent Pegasi. Wizardly opinion suggested that the massive degree of background magic in Lancre made this sort of thing extremely possible there.

King Verence, prompted by Queen Magrat, had produced an ancient statute that said all winged creatures of magic born in Lancre were Royal property. Magrat, for want of something to do as Queen, had spent a lot of time in the Castle library and archives.

Vetinari had proposed a Treaty. This involved money passing from Ankh-Morpork to a cash-starved kingdom. The Pegasi were therefore leased back to Ankh-Morpork to be employed in its service.

As the first two Pegasi were clearly City Watch assets and the Watch had most experience of them, the growing Pegasus Service was under the administrative management of the City Watch, and the horses were therefore under police management and available for police duties. This was understood, so long as they were also available for flights as directed by the Government.

And by inexorable logic, their witches, the only people who could fly them, and most crucially the only people who could give orders to the Feegle navigators who could craw-step them round the Disc **(2),** needed to be trained and sworn in as Watchwomen. Even if they hardly ever did a Watch shift, and devoted their time to flying for the City.

Which meant Bekki and Sophie were now going to become, at the very least, badged Special Constables and Air Police members.

Neither was looking forward to thirteen weeks in police barracks.

"Got a routine prepared for the Witch Trials?" Bekki asked, to put the awful thought out of her mind.

Sophie nodded. They discussed what they were going to do on the day. Watch training could wait till after the Trials.

"Mum's taking you to the Zoo later, isn't she?" Bekki asked.

Sophie nodded.

"I'm looking forward to that. You know, being able to get into the sort of places the public can't go. To get up close to those animals, Bekki! Wild horses, ponies, donkeys, zebras, you know. _Everything_!"

Bekki grinned. The world, for Sophie, divided into equine creatures and all the other stuff, that Sophie conceded had to be there as necessary, but which were secondary casting in a world populated by horses. There was probably no changing her.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Agnes Nitt, celebrated singing virtuoso and Witch, sat placidly whilst Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons completed her portrait. Agnes was keen to see the finished drawing. Ruth was a talented artist, after all. Agnes Nitt had been the subject of many engravings, drawings and latterly iconographs, a lot of which had been done by depressingly under-talented people, so this was nothing new to her. She had been disheartened a little bit right at the start, when Ruth had contemplated the various artists' pads available to her, had assessed a standard A4-sized pad of paper, looked at Agnes critically, then had shaken her head slightly and gone for A3, the next size up. Agnes had noted that Ruth had then looked speculatively at an even larger A2 pad, and had tried not to wince. She wasn't trying to be rude, Agnes realised. Just an artist looking for the appropriately sized canvas.

 _Just be thankful she didn't go for A1_ , Agnes reminded herself.

And then, as they were considering the completed sketches together, _It_ happened. _It_ still happened. Even though over the years Agnes had learnt to manage it...

Ruth paused and looked at Agnes thoughtfully.

"I'm not talking to Agnes any more, am I?" Ruth asked, politely. "I mean, you're still Agnes, but you're a different Agnes..."

Perdita X. Nitt grinned back at her.

"No." Perdita said. "You're not. Not as such. At least you're not frightened."

Ruth considered this.

"Because you're still Agnes. But not Agnes. And Agnes is my friend who'd never hurt me. I don't think you'd hurt me either. You'd still be my friend, but a different friend."

Perdita smiled. It was still an Agnes smile. But sharper, more direct.

"Let me try and explain to you how it works." Perdita said. "Agnes probably hasn't noticed. But I think you really need to know how this sort of thing works. Just a feeling I'm getting."

Ruth nodded. "I think I can draw you too. And you'd look different to Agnes. The Agnes inside, the way she really, really, deep down inside, wants to look, and _be_. Do you mind if I try?"

"Go ahead." Perdita said. "I'd be really interested. We can talk while you draw. And maybe I can talk to the inner _you_. The Ruth you've got inside, the way you see yourself. You know, the Ruth you _really_ want to be."

Ruth nodded. Then she reached for a far smaller A4 pad of drawing paper.

 _ **The Royal Kraal, The Zulu Empire**_

Paramount Crown Princess Ruth N'Kweze, Queen-Regent Elect, sat imperiously in the smaller place of honour to the right of her father, the Paramount King. Her husband General Denizulu, in full regalia, stood behind and to her right, solid and commanding, a reminder to those gathered as to his status and position. Without looking round, Ruth knew that at least six Ankh-Morpork-trained Assassins were in strategic places around the Hall of Audience, all sworn to her and poised to intervene in the event of any unpleasantness. The Zulu guards lining the Hall were jointly drawn from her own Lionesses, from her father's Guard impi, and from the personal guard of Denizulu. Ruth had brought thirty of her best guardswomen, all armed with the silver-plated assegais, which did indeed make a powerful and memorable spectacle in the sunlight. A retinue, people agreed, which was truly fit for the Queen-Regent-Elect. Ruth had made sure a _lot_ of people got to see her personal guard.

And, one by one, her half-brothers and sisters approached the Throne and made ritual obeisiance to the Heir. Their father had commanded it. He had gone so far as to make it clear that anyone failing to turn up would be disinherited and treated as outlaw, their rank and privileges stripped and their lives forfeit.

Ruth sat impassively as the family, a family as mutually hostile as the Lavishes of Ankh-Morpork, prostrated themselves, one by one, in front of the Heir and the Queen-Regent-Elect. Inside she felt a sort of glee building up. Especially as the most powerful of her half-brothers visibly bit back their bile and spoke the words of loyalty, an oath to serve the Heir and when it came to it, his Mother, with absolute fidelity and loyalty.

A trained Assassin, she noted which ones looked most hostile and wavered on the brink of reluctance to submit. She also knew Sissi, Chakkie and Pee-Jay were also watching and taking notes. For possible use later.

One of the last Princes to appear was her half-brother Clement. Ruth was delighted to see him. She thought he was still in Ankh-Morpork, doing his job at the Assassins' School. Clement was dressed in Central Continent clothing, which caused no small stir; a well-tailored summer suit in pale cloth which accentuated his clerical dog-collar, a sign of his priesthood. He made obeisiance willingly and with every sign of pride and happiness at his sister's preferment.

Their father raised an eyebrow.

"You were excused attendance." the King said. "Because you live and work thousands of miles away. We note you returned voluntarily."

"That is true, Father." Clement said, in his deep commanding voice. "But at this time, as many of your children as could gather here _should_ be here. To declare loyalty to the Crown. To pledge loyalty to the sucession. To unite and to show strength. Besides, I have a human need to greet my sister and to see my new nephew for the first time. And to greet and congratulate my brother-in-law, a man who I esteem."

He nodded to Denizulu.

The King smiled slightly.

"Be welcome, Prince Clement N'Effibl. And I would speak to you privately later."

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

"I'm not sure." Ruth said. "But it started when I was doing self-portraits. I'm sorry I don't have them to show you, Mummy and Gillian explained they were best kept securely, so they're in Mummy's safe. I don't have the numbers that unlock it."

Ruth paused, and because she was honest, she added

"Famke was doing basic lock-picking at School. When Mummy and Daddy were out one night, she went in there and experimented. She said she was really close to cracking it, but Claude, our butler, explained to her Mummy would get very annoyed if she found out, and it was best if Miss Famke desisted."

Perdita smiled and nodded encouragement to continue.

"I'm _sure_ I could work out how a combining-numbers lock works. It's only numbers and a mechanism."

Perdita smiled again. Pushing the boundaries, expressing rebellion, and questioning authority were what Perdita X. Nitt was all about, after all. She thought these were worthy goals for a girl to strive for, especially if the dominant personality in the body was meek, law-abiding and self-effacing. Or, as Perdita had put it when she was really frustrated with Agnes, a great fat pudding and a doormat.

Ruth, sensing she was with a friend, went on:

"I keep wanting to go in there and do it. But that would be disrespectful of Mummy and like stealing from her or something. But even knowing that, I want to go in there and open her locked safe. Is that wrong of me?"

She breathed out. It felt good to confess.

"Well, no." Perdita said. "So long as you don't get found out, of course. I'd _do_ it, obviously, but I wouldn't actually steal anything. I'd leave things exactly as I found them, and I'd lock up afterwards."

"And Mummy's an Assassin." Ruth added, thoughtfully. "She's probably got other things guarding that safe, that you won't see until they happen."

"That's a consideration, too." Perdita agreed. "And something happened, on the afternoon you decided you'd look at yourself in a mirror, and do those drawings?"

Ruth nodded.

"I'd seen lots of people with no clothes on in Art books, and in the paintings and the statues, when Gillian took me to the Gallery. I could see some of them looked really real, and some of them looked _wrong_ , somehow, as if the artist had never seen a naked lady, and he was just _guessing_ **.(3)** I thought I'd quite like to draw naked people myself, to see if I could do as well, or even better, but I'd never seen anybody else with no clothes on before. I didn't know how to ask Gillian."

"Not the sort of thing you ask, no." Perdita agreed. "And I think it would have been impossible for you to find a naked model when you needed one. So you realised you had mirrors in your room, and you drew yourself?"

Ruth nodded.

"I had to really make myself do it." Ruth said. "I was scared about it, about people walking in, and what they'd think when they found me with no clothes on. And people _do_ walk into your room. Without knocking. When you're only eight."

"And so you did." Perdita said. Ruth nodded. She went back to her drawing.

"It was like... this little voice in my head. Like it was me but not me. Somebody else in there. She said _"Who cares what people think? Do it anyway!"_ It was like the other voice was really really impatient and upset with me. So I did."

Perdita X. Nitt grinned, this time.

"And what's her name?" she asked. Ruth looked up, startled.

 _ **The Royal Kraal, The Zulu Empire**_

"No mysteries." Clement said. "I got a lift with the Pegasus Service. I arrived with the messenger who brought the mail and despatches from Vetinari. It occured to me at a time like this you might welcome a friendly voice."

He carried on tidying away the vestments of an Ionian priest. In Ruth's allocated quarters at the Royal Kraal, he'd been pleased to conduct an Ionian Naming on his nephew. Ruth appreciated this, and a small number of selected guests had acted as witnesses. Somehow it felt more meaningful than the full-pageantry Presentation, and involved a blessing from the Gods too.

"So Vetinari knows you're here." Ruth said. A thought struck her. "Did he suggest it?"

Clement shook his head.

"He didn't oppose it." her brother said. "I was able to bring the Guild mail, anyway." He nodded to Precious Jewel. "And personal messages from Lord Downey and others. Lady T'Malia says "well done", and reminds you that you can always call on her for personal advice. Lord Downey congratulates you and – forgive me, I don't know yet how much you know?"

Ruth made an educated guess.

"Father really is dying, isn't he?"

Her brother nodded and reached out his hands. He took the hands of both his sisters.

"His Lordship said _"Prepare for Empire."_ " Clement told her, gently. "And sooner than you'd think."

"You spoke to Father. Privately." Precious Jewel said. It was a question. Her brother looked at her, gravely.

"Yes. Privately." he emphasised. "And as a priest, a lot of our conversation was under the seal of the confessional. But Father believes he will be dead by, at latest, eighteen months from now. The cancer is too advanced to cure."

Ruth wondered why tears were prickling her eyes. She'd hardly been _close_ to her father, after all. But still...

"Weep first." Clement told her, gently. "Then, Your Majesty, my sister, prepare for Empire. Father wants you to begin to assume the role before he goes. So he can guide you. And several of our brothers need watching."

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.**_

"When I first had dollies. When I was little. I gave them personalities. One had really long red hair, like Mummy and my sisters. I called her Yolande. Another favourite dolly was Anri. They did all the things I didn't." said Ruth.

Perdita nodded.

"And then when you got a little older and didn't play with dollies any more, because other things were more interesting. Anri and Yolande are still on a shelf somewhere. But this other voice in your head. You'd be surprised how many other people have got one. It's not unusual, and you're not alone."

Ruth nodded. The pace of her drawing slackened slightly as if she was thinking.

"I always feel as if I don't fit in. I don't have red hair like my sisters. Like most of my family. I'd really love to have their red hair. Instead I get this mousy-brown. As if I'm not really their sister. I worry about that."

"It was like that for me. And Agnes. When we were growing up." Perdita said, sympathetically. "Except for the red hair. Agnes got black hair. I think that's _one_ thing she managed to get right."

"It got stronger when I got into that fight at school. And stabbed the other girl in the hand." she said. "Mummy and Daddy thought that was down to Mummy being an Assassin and something I got from Mummy. Maybe that's right. But all I know is, the other me took over. I heard her screaming in my head _Are you really going to let a fat stupid cow like Maggie Bracewell push you around? I'm tired of being Ruth the meek soft kid!_ And she took over and did the stabbing **." (4)**

Perdita smiled and said nothing.

"And then I had that fight with the Things in the Dungeon Dimensions. I had to go and steal a box of matches from Dorothea first. Dorothea's our cook. I felt bad about that but the other voice in my head told me I had to do it. Errr... and then I killed a lot of the Things and cheered on Bekki and Johanna when they went in with swords. But that was me, and it wasn't me at the same time, if you see what I mean."

"I get the point." Perdita said. "I _see_ the point. More so than you might think."

"And Bekki and Famke are so _confident_ about things." Ruth said. "They always seem to know what to do. And Shauna, who's sort of my nanny, but isn't. I wish I could be more like them!"

Perdita looked sympathetic.

"The other me in my head is like them. She doesn't swear as much as Shauna and she's not as fighty as Famke but she's been getting stronger in me since..." Ruth paused and made a few last pencil strokes. "The drawing's done. What do you think?"

Perdita reached out to admire the drawing. It might have been of Agnes Nitt. But _this_ Agnes was a lot slimmer. A lot trimmer. She wore witch black with assurance and style. She was sharper, brighter, more purpose, more _attitude_...

Then Ruth closed her eyes. She trembled slightly. Then opened her eyes again. A definite change had happened. _This_ Ruth looked as if she was modelling her poise and attitude on her sister Famke. She grinned, took in the weapons on the wall, and said

"Wow! I'm here! I'm in charge!"

"For now." Perdita X. Nitt said. "Enjoy it while it lasts. She'll take over again soon. I _know_."

The girl sitting opposite Perdita grinned confidently and stretched out a hand.

"You're Perdita." She said. "I was listening. While soppy Ruth did the talking. I'm Anri-Yolande. Let's be friends!"

"Delighted!" said Perdita X. Nitt.

Much later, Agnes Nitt had a long conversation with Bekki. Agnes had been a horrified spectator when Perdita had surfaced and coaxed Anri-Yolande into the daylight.

"You never go completely under." Agnes had said. "You're there, as a spectator, and you see and hear _everything_."

Bekki nodded. She turned over the two drawings Ruth had made, one of Agnes, and one of Perdita. Both had solidity and reality. Quite a lot of solidity and reality, in the case of Agnes. Bekki decided it would be cruel to discuss the differences. But Perdita had reality in the drawing. As if she'd been present, physically, in the room.

"I bet that applies to Ruth too." Bekki said. "When her _not-imaginary-at-all-friend_ surfaced. Ruth would have been listening and noticing everything about her."

Bekki considered the drawings again. Ruth had really given Perdita, Agnes' shadow-self, reality and depth and presence. Bekki wondered what would happen if Ruth had the idea to draw Anri-Yolande, a sort of other-self-portrait.

 _It might help her integrate the two_ , Bekki thought. _Just like Agnes got the Perdita thing under control and got the two sides of herself working together as well as they do._

Second and third thoughts kicked in _._

It might work, you know." Bekki said. "You're in your thirties. Perdita started to come out in you when you were five or six or seven. And she got stronger after you turned thirteen or fourteen. Then Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods_ , trained you as a Witch and taught you how to deal with it. The two of you have learnt how to get on together. You've been doing that for nearly thirty years, after all. Ruth needs the same guidance."

Agnes nodded.

"Agnes can work with Ruth. Where needed, Perdita can work with Anri-Yolande. Maybe it balances out." Bekki said.

Agnes smiled.

"Perhaps you're right." She said. "The question is now – what do we tell your parents?"

"Let's make a plan." Bekki said.

 _ **The City Zoo, Ankh-Morpork**_

"I've got it, now." said Sophie Rawlinson. She stretched out on the ground behind the tranquillised zebra. Kneeling up next to her, Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes watched attentively. Some jobs needed more than two pairs of hands.

"It's an awkward presentation." Sophie said. "The head and one foreleg are trying to come out but the other foreleg's folded back on itself and still in the womb. We just need to rearrange things inside. If I hold the head back we should be able to avoid a caesarean, and if you pull gently on the twine I've looped round the leg when I tell you, I should be able to reach further in and guide things and ease the other fore into the right position... I've managed to get another loop around that leg..."

Johanna did her part. Sophie grunted with exertion.

"It's this business of trying to keep some parts in when everything in the dam's system is trying to push them out... ah, here it comes..."

Sophie rolled out and away, withdrawing her arm, drawing steeadily on her length of binding twine, as a newborn zebra foal arrived in the world. They watched it stumble onto its hooves and blink in the light. Johanna appreciated having somebody on hand who really knew what she was doing with equines. It made many things easier.

"Has anyone ever tried to domesticate them?" Sophie asked, as the zebra foal went looking for milk.

Johanna smiled.

"There was a med lord once. A relative of the Remkin femily. Well, perheps not _med_ es such. But Sybil told me the Remkin men get odd ideas, end wish to try them out to see if they work. When Sybil Remkin's great-grendfether was the elmost-the-lest governor of the colonies in Howondaland, his brother, or maybe his cousin, went out there. He hed the idea of raising zebra foals as if they were horses. He got six of them trained to pull a coach. **(5)** It ell went quite well, until one day the zebras he _thought_ he hed domesticated met a wild herd, end decided they'd quite like to join it."

Johanna shook her head.

"They reverted. Tipped the coach over end broke the traces. Efter dregging it uncontrollably ecross the Veldt for some miles. Thet Remkin hes a grave in Howondaland."

"So not a good idea, then." Sophie said, watching the Zoo's herd of zebras. They were gathered at a suspicious distance from the mare and new foal, seemingly waiting for the humans and attendent Zoo golems to finish what they were doing and move on. Sophie stood up, and reflected it might be a good idea to wash down a right arm and upper body that had recently been up to the shoulder in zebra.

Johanna smiled.

"I hev other enimels you may wish to see. You know, if you do not get a Steading in Lencre, I could find a position for you et the Zoo. A Witch with your skills is en esset."

Sophie smiled with pride. She'd worked out that Bekki's mother was adept at spotting talented people and helping their careers along. She supposed it came from teaching at the Guild school: the Assassins must graduate more people than actually wanted to _be_ active practicing Assassins, after all. Sophie wondered how that worked. Somebody spent seven years learning all the skills and passed out. A lot of the things they taught must be transferable skills. _Whoever was Careers Officer there must have an interesting job..._

"Got a pony or two I'd quite like you to take a look at." Johanna said. "Rare species. Lencre Hill Ponies. I reckon a Lencre-trained Witch should find them an interesting chellenge."

Sophie beamed with joy. Lancre Hill Ponies. She'd seen them, one of the last wild herds, from a distance up in the foothills, but had never been able to get close. Vicious, untameable, attitudinal, capable of dealing a nasty bite or a kick if you got too close. People had been gored to death by Lancre Hill Ponies. And now she was to go into an enclosure with them and see them at very close quarters. Sophie beamed with delight. Life really couldn't get any better than this.

Johanna smiled contentedly. She believed in matching the right people to the right jobs. It was how you got things done, and got things done well. She reflected that Shauna O'Hennigan was leaving school in a couple of weeks. This was good. She had a job lined up for Shauna too, full-time. Just to see how she got on. Johanna considered a bright and confident girl, who in normal circumstances might have left school into the sort of unskilled or semi-skilled occupations which seemed to be the only ones available to people brought up in a place like Dimwell. Or even to poverty, crime and desperation measures, just to scratch by, and a slum house with an exorbitant rent attached to go home to. _Well, we can do better than that..._

Johanna also wondered how Agnes Nitt was getting on with Ruth. The two of them seemed to have really hit it off. She considered this was good for her youngest daughter. Shauna as a sort of big sister to look up to, Gillian Lansbury to teach her Art, and now, with an unquantified streak of magic, another sort of Godsmother who was not only literate in Music, but who was also a Witch, and could deal with issues arising on that side. _A very special and talented daughter, steered to the right sort of guides and teachers. Perfect._

Idly, Johanna wondered what Dorothea was doing for the evening dinner tonight. It would be good to come home to. She walked with Sophie, on a perfect summer evening, round to the highly-fenced reinforced enclosure that contained the Zoo's collection of Lancre Hill Ponies.

 _ **Again, to be continued.**_

* * *

 _ ** **(1)** Call-back to my tale _Bad Hair Day_.**_

 **(2)** And the only people who could hope to have those orders obeyed by the Feegle

 **(3)** Consider those mediaeval paintings and drawings, where the artist – sometimes a cloistered monk who is doing the monastic equivalent of a dirty doodle in the margin – is aware of the general principles of the female nude form, but is hampered by never having actually, you know, ever _**seen**_ one. The results can look a bit strange and oddly shaped.

 **(4)** A defence Sam Vimes and the City Watch have heard many times, and which they – and the presiding judge – have never been persuaded by. In this case, almost uniquely, it possibly has some validity.

 **(5)** This was indeed done in the Victorian era by an eccentric nobleman with money and time on his hands. Look up Lord Walter Rothschild to see how he managed it.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and I'm Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.**_

 _ **Anri-Yolande, Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons's emerging Perdita, is based on South African rebel and punk rocker Anri du Toit (Yolande), one half of punk-ish rock duo, Die Antwoord, whose songs are about angry disaffected South African white youth from the "zef" end of society – a sort of Afrikaaner Patti Smith. The music is so-so but you can get the idea of pissed-off young white Saffies in dead-end jobs or no jobs living in social housing in the cities, questioning what their society is about: punk rock coming late to SA but in much the same sort of circumstances it came to Britain and the USA. This seems like the right sort of starting-point for Ruth's inner "Perdita" to emerge… alienation and anomie. (Hmm: Anomia?) And who better to realise Anri is in there but Perdita X. Nitt…**_


	47. Katte in die Nag

_**Strandpiel 47**_

 _ **Katte in die Nag**_

 _ **Here we go again... the latest chapter of the monster saga of inter-related family and friends on two continents. Still looking to bring it to some sort of a natural close... might take a while yet... as always, first draft for publication. Revisions will happen later. And even then I'll still miss something.**_

 _ **Got hold of some boerewois from a local butcher who spreads his sourcing very far and wide. I was most impressed. Ankh-Morpork would decry this as a strange foreign sausage with not enough fat, gristle or sawdust in it and too much meat. Call that a sausage? Bloody foreign food stinking the place out. But another good reason to change my nationality, if only by physically absorbing the foodstuffs, to South African. Milktart is good, too. Ask a Saffie.**_

 _ **On with the story! Playing with how certain concepts in spirituality might work out on the Disc...**_

 _ **Hellspool, Nap Hill, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Bekki called in on her aunt and uncle shortly before flying back to Lancre for the Witch Trials. She'd been there to help Mattewis into the world. She therefore clearly had an interest in seeing how her newest cousin was getting on. Hellspool, despite its off-putting name, was a pleasant suburban street a short walk away from Spa Lane. Auntie Heidi had bought a house here when first married. Bekki wondered how the name had come about and what the local history was **.(1)**

She remembered the night of the birth. The official midwife, new out of the training school at the Lady Sybil, had clearly been a little bit intimidated. She was, after all, in a room full of foreign people who insisted on speaking their first language. And not just any old foreigners: the mother, who was having her first baby and going through the usual stages of cursing the father and demanding More Drugs! Now! – well, she was an Assassin. As was the sister-in law who was at the bedside. _And_ the child's grandmother, who had only just arrived from Howondaland and was looking on with an all-seeing gimlet eye.

Bekki had registered the midwife's obvous nervousness and taken her to one side.

"Your first?" Bekki had asked.

The midwife, possibly relieved to be talking to somebody with a Morporkian accent, had nodded.

"This little boy is going to be my tenth." Bekki had said. She had patted the midwife on the shoulder. "Now let me tell you how it goes. I'm a witch. We learn the _practical_. You've done the theory and largely learnt from books. That's fine. You'll know things I won't and if it comes to it you can advise me. But I certainly know things _you_ don't. So stand back and watch. I'll do the birthing. We can learn together."

Bekki had largely done what needed to be done, under the approving eye of her grandmother. She had let the midwife do the book-keeping side of things: weighing, recording birthweight and time, and so forth. The things the hospital needed to have done.

Then the child had been Named, once the men, who included Ampie, were invited in. Bekki had noticed one other thing had happened, a significant thing. Her father hadn't been there to see it, but she'd resolved to tell him later. As a witch, she was pretty sure she was the only one who had noticed, but she was also aware of the unspoken caveat that said some things are only for magic users to know.

Afterwards she had explained, privately, to her father, who was also a magic user. And the child's uncle. If she wasn't around, he'd know, so as to smooth over any inexplicable things that might happen with Mattewis.

"Strictly confidential, dad." she had said. "There are rules to this sort of thing."

Ponder Stibbons had nodded, understanding.

"So the child is..."

"Yes, dad. But this sort of thing isn't the kind of thing to _tell_ anyone. It gives a secret or two away. And as the Ancestors tell me, there are Rules as to what the living can find out. The Gods like to keep us guessing, and it puts priests out of a job if people get to know for sure."

"No point in having priests, then." Ponder agreed. "So that's _really_ how it works?"

 _Most of the time, Professor Ponder._ said a voice only they could hear. _It is optional. And we were all pleased._

 _And a little bit envious._ said a second voice. _But it could be me next time._

 _ **Hellspool**_

Bekki studied the women in the room around her. Auntie Heidi, looking plumper and more homely. She knew her aunt wanted to shed the baby-weight and get back to Assassin-fitness, as her mother had had to do three times. Mum was there, to offer advice and support. As was Ouma Agnetha, Bekki's grandmother and family matriarch. Bekki felt a pang of sympathy for the new nanny. Lottie van de Kaasmakkers was barely seventeen, slightly older than Bekki, and was from Sto Kerrig. Bekki's mother had fixed it for a nanny to be in place _before_ the birth of Mattewis, so that the girl could settle in, get to know the family, and be instructed as to her duties in good time. This had also excluded Agnetha Smith-Rhodes from the decision-making, something Ouma was still in a slight huff about. Mum had sold the idea to Ouma, reminding her that it was necessary to have a nanny in place who spoke _some_ sort of recognisable language, and Kerrigian was closely related to Vondalaans. And that it worked with Annaliese and my three. And Lottie comes with really good references, mutti, we _did_ check.

Lottie was plump, blonde, homely and good-natured. Bekki recognised the resemblence in look and attitude to her own nanny Annaliese and wondered if this had been deliberate. Then second thoughts kicked in – _of course_ it had been deliberate.

Lottie had been overjoyed at her new situation, as nanny to the child of famous foot-the-ball player Danie Smith-Rhodes. Danie was inclined to treat her as a favourite little sister who was staying in the house. She and Heidi had hit it off too. And then Ouma and the new baby arrived in quick succession. Lottie had been grilled on her child-tending skills at great length. She had reminded Ouma she was from a family of nine children and had helped her mother a lot with her siblings.

She was off the hook justnow; the focus of attention was on Uncle Danie being painstakingly taught how to change a nappy. Ouma had insisted. Auntie Heidi had backed her up. As had Mum. The three of them were supervising. Ouma had pointed out that a man _should_ know these skills and that she was not going to budge until her son had learnt an essential parenting skill to her full satisfaction. Lottie was hovering at the edges, watching nervously.

"You will do most of it." Ouma said. "As part of your role. But this does not excuse the child's father from remaining ignorant."

" _Ja_ , Matron Smith-Rhodes." Lottie said, submissively. "And I thank ye for thy patient instructions in my role in this demesne."

Kerrigian was mutually understandable to Vondalaans-speakers. It just sounded odd, _old_ , somehow. The language people had spoken several hundred years ago before emigrating to Howondaland.

Auntie Heidi looked down at her son, who was burbling happily to himself on the changing table. She frowned.

"Do all little boys grab themselves... down there?" she asked, curious.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes shrugged.

"Don't ask me." she said. "Mine were all girls."

Ouma Agnetha smiled slightly and gently removed the boy's hand from where it was exploring. After a few seconds the hand went back again. Bekki, who'd seen this too in baby boys, was intrigued. Agnetha shook her head.

"Ag. They all do it. Take it from me. They get a strange fascination with it."

She removed the hand again and gave instruction to Danie in how to close and seal the _doek,_ with strict instructions to avoid pinning it directly into the poor child's flesh _, watch for that._

Agnetha regarded her son thoughtfully.

"And they never seem to grow out of it, either." she observed. Several women laughed. Lottie giggled. Danie went red.

Bekki suspected there was another reason why this little boy was fascinated with a male body...

And back at Spa Lane...

" _Ja, they say It Could Be You._ Jonanna Livinia remarked. _Like the Anoians, Professor Ponder. That little saying you Wizards have. As Above, So Below. We have a lottery too._

Ponder nodded, trying to take it in.

"It's not so surprising, Dad." Bekki said. "When you think about it. Only so many children get born every day. There have got to be lots more people in the Afterlife than babies born. It might be one in, one out, but there's _always_ going to be a surplus. Especially over thousands of years."

 _I've been up here for a hundred and thirteen years._ Johanna Livinia said. _You don't have to go back. Not if you don't want to. But people do._

"So you have a lottery. You're issued a number. And when the numbers come up..." Ponder said. It sounded absurd. But right.

 _You get another go._ Johanna Livinia confirmed. _And Johanna Martia's numbers came up. And as chance would have it, there was a job opening in the family. Doesn't happen often. But she took it. Maar, who wouldn't?_

Ponder looked at his daughter. Bekki looked back. It was a Witch to Wizard moment.

"Say it with me, dad. Mattewis _Johannes Martius_ van Kruger Smith-Rhodes..."

Ponder blinked.

"Who now has the soul of his long-dead great-great-aunt on his father's side. Johanna Martia Smith-Rhodes..."

 _She could have worse parents, Professor Ponder. Heidi is a good girl and will be a fine mother. Danie is an admirable man, not a great thinker or intellectual but he will be an fine father. For a boy to look up to and respect._

"Yes _. She._ In a boy's body?" Ponder asked. How will that work out?"

Johanna Livinia made a post-mortem shrug.

 _These things work out, Professor Ponder. Gender is never absolute. Ask your friend Alice Band._

"It took me a while to think it out, Dad." Bekki said. "But it's like Borrowing to a witch. You stay in another form for too long, it defines you. The shape dictates what you are. Johanna Martia will be in there, but deeply submerged, sort of dormant. My guess is that for all intents and purposes you will have a boy called Mattewis Smith-Rhodes who will be in all respects a boy. But just now and again he'll get odd dreams or memories coming in from somewhere about having been a woman. Somebody else's memories. And no, he probably won't be Blue Cat Club, if that's on your mind. Not unless he _wants_ to be. Early days yet."

 _In dreams which are more than dreams, he might become Johanna Martia again. We can meet her in such dreams, but in that place a different set of rules apply. You and Bekki both know this well. She is not lost to us by any means. And we look forward to watching him as he grows. Win all round, as Bekki might say._

Bekki hoped her father wouldn't ask her about Borrowing. She'd experimented, carefully, aware of Witch-lore. Two cats and two dogs in the house who she'd known since kitten and puppyhood. And loads of interesting animals at the Zoo. Although being a tigress for a while had been exhilarating, she'd come back ravenous for raw meat... she'd been lucky in that Dorothea had been serving rare beef that night. Mum had looked sharply at her when Bekki had been tempted to use her fingers, dissappointed there were no handy claws to hold the prey down... **(2)**

"Well, let's see how it goes." Ponder had said, resignedly. "I guess his mum and his aunts will teach him about weapons. And he'll be good at it."

"He's been pencilled in for the Guild School." Bekki said helpfully. "He'll do well, I think."

Bekki cherished the momory of three of the Ancestors, unheeded in the delivery room, hugging and kissing the fourth goodbye. And then Johanna Martia had dissolved and dissappeared, and _something_ had entered the psychic space of the new child being born... Bekki had felt oddly privileged to see it. Witches said this sort of thing happened, but you were usually far too busy with other things at that point to notice it. **(3)**

She thought again.

"After all, Dad." she said. "You could argue being alive at all is a sort of Borrowing. You get the body and it's yours for as long as you need it, or as long as you're alive, then you thank the host and move on. And I hope that's not being too religious. Where you were before and who you are afterwards is something else."

 _ **The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork:**_

Vetinari smiled a tight little smile. He laid down the briefing documents and reports from his Embassies in Howondaland.

"At least one of the difficult situations in the Zulu Empire appears to be resolving itself satisfactorily." he remarked. "I am advised that shortly there will be less chance of renewed war between the Empire and Muntab. King Mpandwe appears certain of that."

The Zulu Empire's Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork sat uneasily in his seat. He had been asked to the Oblong Office to answer some pressing questions concerning, for instance, the possibility of renewed war with Muntab following the assasination attempt on the life of the woman who was now Queen Regent-Elect. Several half-brothers of the Queen Regent had marched their personal troops to the Hubwards of the Empire, close to the Muntabian border. Her brothers might not love Ruth or even like her, but the Muntabians had tried to kill a member of the Paramount House, and the insult was therefore to be avenged. It was the principle of the thing. King Mpandwe had ordered them to halt. He had sweetened the pill by assuring his sons that if anyone was entitled to take revenge and seek retribution, it was _him_ , their father, the Paramount King. And by the way, continue marching to the border and you will discover troops personally loyal to me will already be there, blocking your way, in a purely polite and non-confrontational way, obviously. _For now_.

"My brother has said he intends to resolve the situation in a manner that averts open war." The Ambassador said. A younger brother of the Paramount King and a Prince of a previous generation, he too was anxious about the possibilities of open war in the empire. Especially if he then had to explain things to Vetinari. _And_ he wanted a country to retire back to, when his time here was over. _Which is likely to be soon..._

Vetinari nodded, sympathetically.

"As it happens, I believe him. No doubt we will discover soon how he intends to achieve this."

The ambassador tried not to look puzzled. He had a suspicion Vetinari knew more than he was letting on here. He certainly looked relaxed about it.

"All in due course. But now, Ambassador."

Vetinari steepled his fingers and frowned.

"I trust that now the political situation in the Zulu Empire has stabilised somewhat, the influx of refugees to this City will dwindle from a flood to a trickle?"

The ambassador winced. He'd been dealing with the fallout too. Receiving people who had been exiled from the homeland and trying to do what he could for them, out of decency and, it had to be said, because of family. Many had been his nephews and nieces – well, _half_ nephews and nieces. His brother had many wives. And lots of children.

"Hardly a flood, my Lord." he said. "A total of several hundred, perhaps."

"A small flood." Vetinari agreed. "Sufficient to flood a room or two, perhaps. But people uprooted from their lives in a faraway continent, no doubt with good and pressing reasons for their exile, forcibly escorted to tramp ships by dead of night, and shipped halfway around the world to a foreign city which is utterly unfamiliar to them, then told not to come back home _just_ yet."

The Ambassador nodded.

"And invariably to _this_ City". Vetinari went on.

"It is perhaps the merciful way, my Lord." The Ambassador said. He had no desire to criticise the next Paramount Monarch, even here. He felt he'd be depending on her soon for what he hoped would be a peaceful retirement. And Ruth had been pursuing a non-lethal option for many of her siblings...

"Paramount Monarchs of old would have had them executed. And, to prevent the taint spreading or adult children coming back seeking vengeance, their extended families, also."

" I appreciate the restraint shown by the Queen-Regent Elect." Vetinari said. "I understand that although she is an Assassin, she is reluctant to pursue the inhumation option unless there is really no alternative. An admirable quality in one who will soon be running an Empire. But the fact remains that quite a lot of former Princes and Princesses of the Paramount House, disgraced, stripped of their noble status and exiled, together with their extended families. Which, for any given Prince who lost an argument with Princess Ruth, can also mean more than one wife and up to twenty dependent children. All arriving, as one tired, poor and huddled mass, on _this_ shore."

He looked at the Ambassador again. The Ambassador felt he had to fill the silence.

"We have been giving generous aid to resettle the families, my Lord. Finding them places to stay, finding employment suitable for them, and asking other nations for generous assistance in taking in refugees..."

Vetinari nodded, sympathetically.

"And, no doubt, sharp words were spoken in some cases concerning the regrettable fact that they _used_ to be Princes and Princesses, they have this status no longer, and they need to adjust to new realities. Very quickly."

The ambassador nodded, ruefully. One former Prince and former commander of several impis was now labouring on the docks. Another was working as a kitchen porter for All Jolson and submitting to the indignity of taking orders from a Matabel. A former Princess, a half-sister of Ruth, had pragmatically adjusted and after an interview with Rosie Palm, was prospering in a trade where she was viewed as an exotic novelty. She had assured the Ambassador that she was quite enjoying her new life, was even making significant money at it, and was prepared to take the view that Ruth had really done her a favour. Best of all, nobody was trying to kill her and the only serpents to be found in her bed were manageable ones, who were glad to see her and paying for the privilege of being there.

"The Assassins' Guild School is taking several of the more promising young boys and girls as Scholarship pupils." the Ambassador continued. "The sisters of Seven-Handed Sek's are assisting and offering to educate many of the girls, and are finding them places to stay. I thank them for their charity. And the kingdom of Lancre said it could find room for a refugee family. Queen Magrat insisted. Local people are accomodating them."

"Oh, yes." Vetinari said, thoughtfully. "Lancre. My word, _that_ will be interesting!"

 _ **The Royal Kraal, the Zulu Empire.**_

King Mpandwe bit back the pain in his gut and contemplated the potion he had ordered from Ankh-Morpork. One of the clever white witches had made it up, and it had been delivered by express Pegasus with Vetinari's personal blessing. He'd met some of the white witches and had been personally impressed by them. The Witch-Finders had screamed blue murder, but he'd expected that. Ruth was right. It was time for new thinking.

He looked at the other people in the hut. They looked back with expressions of anxiety and concern. Zazu, his Speaker. Princess Ruth, his immediate sucessor to be. General Denizulu, her husband, a man poised to be Consort to the Queen-Regent. And his Great Wife, Ruth's mother, a woman he now realised he loved. And would soon be leaving.

"You know I'll be good for nothing after I drink this." the King said. "I'll be out cold and sleeping for two hours. So listen to me now, while I'm, what do you call it, lucid."

"Princess Ruth tells me it is addictive, sire." Zazu said. "The distilled juice of the Agatean poppy."

Mpandwe stared him out.

"I'm not going to be here for long enough to get addicted, Zazu." he said. "At this moment in my life, addiction is not an issue. Now listen to me. Within the next day or two, our response to Muntab will have been delivered. Conclusively. It will show we are angry. That attacks on our nation will be answered decisively. And while they will suspect it is us, they will not be able to prove it for sure. It will avert renewed war. Others of our neighbours will see it and take note."

He nodded to the Queen-Regent-Elect.

"Ruth's idea. A creatively nasty and most appropriate one. And she was the injured party and has the right. Messages will be sent when it succeeds. Keep me informed."

The king studied the oily liquid in the glass. Then he drained it, set the glass down, and composed himself on the sleeping mat. He smiled up at Ruth's mother.

"Nyokabi, my love, would you lie down next to me and be near while I go into sleep? Thank you, my moon."

Ruth smiled at her parents, feeling something like love. It was rare in her family and usually taken as a sign of weakness.

"Father, it is perhaps best if we leave now?" she prompted him.

Her father smiled up. The pain was already receding.

"You may leave, Ruth. But be close. I will need you, daughter."

 _ **The Citadel of Muntab:**_

The two black-skinned slaves bowed their heads submissively at the gate leading out of the forbidding city-state. The gate guard, disinterestedly, recognised the iron slave-collars and glanced at the proferred scroll explaining that they were slaves with permission to leave the City on an errand for their master. The guard nodded, passed the scroll back, and gestured to the gate. The slaves sal'aamed thanks and left on their business. They indeed had good reason to leave the City in a hurry. A boat would be waiting on the coast to sail them back home. Before things were discovered behind them.

 _ **Pork Scratching, Lancre:**_

Bekki returned to Highmost Pigmaney, where she'd be staying for a few weeks around the Witch Trials. This time, Wee Archie Aff The Midden guided her straight there. Bekki reflected that this was a route he knew well by now, so there shouldn't be any problems. But you never knew, with Archie...

She guided the stick into a landing outside the farmhouse and was warmly received by Petulia Gristle.

"Glad to have you back." Petulia said. "So many people have been asking about you."

Petulia looked thoughtful for an instant.

"Still in Howondalandian clothes, I see. Listen. Something you need to know.."

Bekki patted down her Veldt-chic and checked the set of her weapons. _So useful on a farm..._

And then the Zulu stepped out from around a corner of a byre. He stopped dead, stared at Bekki for an instant, then ran back. Bekki was intrigued: you didn't associate Lancre with black people. She was about to follow him to say hello and find out if he spoke any Xhosa, and then he was back. Screaming a war cry and raising an assegai and a hide shield.

Bekki froze for a second, then ancestral memories rose in her and her machete came out in a fast smooth draw.

Belatedly, the Zulu war cry reassembled itself in her head in Morporkian.

 _The Red Death? Why is he calling me that... oh, hells!_

Bekki had once before seen an armed Zulu. But that had been Ruth N'Kweze, demonstrating how fast her people could move, with the trophy weapons that usually hung over the fireplace. This looked like being more than that. And she wondered if Mum or Aunt Mariella had ever felt the same sort of gut-clenching terror...

"STOP!" Petulia Gristle said, stepping between machete and assegai. She glared at both would-be fighters. The weapons lowered.

Bekki saw a Zulu woman and several children putting their heads around the side of a barn. They looked terrified. Petulia saw this too.

"Dabu?" she said, in a gentler voice. "I need you. To come and explain to your father what is happening here. You are in no danger. Nobody is. _Provided those weapons are lowered, now_!"

Petulia nodded to Bekki.

"Dabu speaks some Morporkian. His parents don't. Yet. He interprets the world for them and explains to them."

"I wish somebody would explain it to _me_." Bekki said. She lowered the machete, but didn't sheathe it. The Zulu, who was wearing boots and a bib-front overall splattered with Pig, lowered but did not ground the assegai. He glared at Bekki. She realised, with Second Thoughts, that the big imposing man was terrified of her and trying not to show it. It was a novel experience. People had never been terrified of Bekki before.

She tuned in. To Petulia explaining about her to the Zulu warrior. The boy, about thirteen, relayed the explanation in isiZulu. Bekki picked up snatches of it.

 _... looks like the Red Death... dressed like Red Death... carries a blade like Red Death... but this is not the Red Death..._

Bekki wondered, in a detached sort of way, what the Red Death was and why Zulus wanted to fight it with weapons. Then it dawned on her.

"They've mistaken me for my _mother_ , haven't they?" she asked. Again she wondered what sort of things her mother had done in the course of an adventurous life to provoke this sort of reaction.

"And posisbly one of your aunts." Petulia said. She took in the red hair and the Veldt-clothing. "Easy mistake to make."

Bekki sighed and sheathed her sword.

"Listen to me?" she said, in Xhosa, addressing the warrior. "I am sorry I do not speak much Zulu and I mean no disrespect speaking to you in another tribe's language. I know who the Red Death is, yes. But I am not her. Now why don't you tell me who _you_ are?"

The Zulu blinked on hearing a Howondalandian language spoken by a white person who looked like a Vondalaander. Bekki remembered this was rare. Vondalaanders generally didn't bother making the effort. But the assegai lowered.

"I trust Petulia the _isangoma_." he said. "She offered me a life again and a place for my family. I work for her. Until recently I was a Prince of the Empire.."

Bekki heard the story. He'd apparently joined in a plot to kill Ruth N'Kweze. Ruth had heard about it. He'd ended up exiled, unwanted in Ankh-Morpork, and after a long uncomfortable sea voyage round Cape Terror and into the Circle Sea, he, his wives, and children had been offered sanctuary in Lancre.A long train ride had followed into an uncertain foreign country.

Bekki offered her hand. After a little hesitation, the Zulu took it. He smiled slightly. She sensed relief that he hadn't had to fight her. That was okay; Bekki hadn't wanted to fight him.

"All Zulu boys are charged with tending animals." he said. "Even royalty. Tending to pigs is no hardship."

"Work for everyone." Petulia said. "I want the children in the village school, such as it is. And the ladies are good at blanket-weaving, which helps. You just wouldn't believe how useful that is in Lancre. They do useful baskets and things, too."

She smiled.

"They'll fit in. I got them the old cottage on the road out to Pork Rind. Bit of a squeeze, but they all fit, just about. And do you know, Bekki? Right when I first met you I remarked about there being no Zulus in Lancre, or I'd have noticed..."

Bekki grinned. This man had tried to kill Ruth, admittedly. But he'd come off worst. And Ruth was still alive. Bekki reflected that her mother had probably killed a few Zulus. Same for Aunt Mariella. If they'd both become notorious enough to end up being called The Red Death, and this Zulu wasn't going to hold it against her, she wouldn't hold it against him that he'd tried to kill a woman she thought a lot of. New start, clean slate.

 _ **The Citadel of Muntab:**_

The alarm was raised when the body of the Theocrat was discovered. Apparently he'd been mauled to death – thoroughly – by the leopards he kept in his menagerie. The body was so mangled it was hard to tell. But a careful head-count of the animals established that two were missing. The Keeper of the Theocratic Leopards was summoned and explained that they'd fairly recently had two new acquisitions, new leopards from Howondaland... if they'd escaped...

But by then two people were on a boat back to the Zulu Empire. They tried to keep dry and not to look at the sea too much on the return trip. Cats of all kinds do not like water very much.

The news of the success of the Leopard Society went before them to the Royal Kraal. Revenge had been served. As Ruth N'Kweze had said, if they really want to fight with weres, they can tackle some of _ours_. Poetic justice.

 _ **Again, to be continued.**_

* * *

 **(1)** It's on the Mapp. I wonder about the name too. There may be story mileage in Heidi and Danie finding out. First thoughts: I visualise this as having been a (now long drained) pond or small lake where a long-gone necromancer got up to stuff re. Post Mortem Communications and called up something hard to put down again. Cue a Haunting? With a pissed-off Assassin mother getting annoyed with things going bump in the night? It could explain why the house was so cheap…

 **(2)** Bekki had apologised and explained to Mum later about the Borrowing thing. Johanna had taken a deep breath and asked how it worked. After hearing Bekki's explanation, she had said "Well, do not try to Borrow honey-badgers, then. Important." Mum had also spoken to Irena, who had given Bekki a long cool look, and said "Under supervision, _devyushka_. Important."

 **(3)** Bekki suspected there had to be an anthropomorphic personality who ushered people _into_ the world. Death existed. So logically there must be a Birth too. She wondered what Birth looked like and hoped she might get to meet Her.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and I'm Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.**_

 _ **nope, nothing much this chapter.**_


	48. Misverstande

_**Strandpiel 48**_

 _ **Misverstande - misunderstandings**_

 _ **And so we come back to the story. EDIT. January 2019: noticed a big glaring "not-quite-right" in the original version, kept seeing it, realised it wouldn't get right on its own, so I came back to correct a continuity error relating to an earlier tale – of course two people who get together here would have met before.**_

 _ **The Ramtop Mountains, Lancre:**_

" _Close up!"_ Miss Alice Band called, urgently. _"No Straggling! Keep up!"_

She stood and glared down the line of student Assassins who were moving up the trail on the side of the mountain. In Lancre, the dominant direction, everywhere, appeared to be uphill. It was one of those things.

Alice knew that Johanna Smith-Rhodes was somewhere towards the back of the line, helping keep a careful head-count and to ensure that nobody _else_ had fallen off the trail. Again. Rescuing Michael Dearson of Cobra House had taken ingenuity and had slowed the march. Admittedly, Dearson had lodged in the upper branches of a fir tree about fifty or so feet down and had only been bruised and winded. But the rescue had taken an hour or two, and had put them behind schedule for arriving in... Alice consulted her memory. In this place called Bacon Rind. That led to another hamlet called Pork Rind. With a larger town called Pork Scratching, if it could be called a town, where they were going to be shown accommodation for the night. Johanna's daughter was arranging that for them.

Alice thought of her ill-fated previous long stay in Lancre, many years previously, and winced at the memories **.(1)** She tried to assure herself that she hadn't been deliberately avoiding revisiting the benighted country. Not at all. It was just that every time the Guild School ran a field trip to Lancre, Alice had unavoidably had teaching duties she couldn't get out of, or urgent tasks elsewhere, or that it might be really good experience for a new Teaching Assistant to assist on an Expedition… **(2)** people like Johanna and the Compte de Yoyo had been quietly understanding, as they always were. Courteously, they hadn't pressed the point.

Alice pursed her lips, accepted she'd run out of excuses to avoid returning to Lancre, and moved on. She had glimpsed little blue blurs following them in the undergrowth. She was sure she'd heard a few sniggers on the cusp of audibility **.(3)** This was doing nothing for her good temper.

 _We've got a local witch on side. Bekki should be able to rein in the Feegle. I hope._

Alice turned her attention to the students. They were a mixed-sex, all-ages group drawn from all years. This added another potential hazard, but the party included a couple of senior students, made Prefects for the trip, who'd be policing for this sort of thing. They were here for the experience and as a sort of reward for good behaviour. This end-of-year trip was meant to be a fairly relaxed informal affair, testing field skills of all sorts and with a little training thrown in. The younger students were ones identified as having potential, who might benefit from a few informal lessons set a few years higher than their age group would normally get.

"Great, isn't it, miss?" one student said. She was barely twelve, but had no difficulty at all in keeping up with the march. A steep uphill trek had left her unwinded, and she'd always been pretty much at the head of the march. But with this student and her heritage, you'd expect that. Gods, she'd even been allowed to carry a machete – _cultural weapon,_ Alice reminded herself – on the strict understanding it was only to be used to cut back stubborn undergrowth overgrowing the trail.

Alice nodded. She unbound herself a little.

"Indeed, miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. _Lekker_ , perhaps."

Famke grinned back. Alice half-smiled. When the girl was behaving herself, she could be a model pupil. And she'd trekked the Veldt in Howondaland. Her mother had taught her about moving and surviving in the wild. And Johanna was keeping a wary eye on her daughter's access to a large heavy lethal weapon. Which Famke was carrying with ease, unbothered by the weight.

 _Well, let's keep it informal and relaxed. Besides, Johanna has made it quite clear her daughter is carrying a weapon on sufferance. Probation, you might say._

Famke moved back to a friend. Alice nodded. There were other reasons for choice of included pupils. Thora Bryttasdottir's family might be in Überwald. But Dwarfs have family connections everywhere. Taking a Dwarf to Lancre was a no-brainer. If she got to see family here – no bad thing. For Thora, the march was no hardship either.

The expedition moved on. Alice speculated on the reception they'd get in Pork Scratching. The day after, they'd be pushing on to Lancre town… then she thought she heard a voice in the undergrowth say "hope the lassie behaves herself round oor mounds!"

Alice winced.

 _ **Pork Scratching, Lancre:**_

Bekki had been getting to know the Zulu family who had arrived here as refugees. They'd intrigued her. She wanted to find out more about them, there way of life, the reasons why they'd improbably ended up in Lancre, and how they were being received by local people. Petulia had put the word out that they were to be welcomed and shown hospitality. For another thing, Queen Magrat had insisted. As had King Verence: it fostered good international relations between the Kingdom of Lancre and the Zulu Empire, for one thing, and he could write to Paramount King Mpandwe, as between royal peers, to reassure him that his sons, the former Princes, were being shown kindness and courtesy. We understand there are good reasons for their exile and demotion to the commons, and we have no wish to interfere in that, nor to offend either you or the Queen-Regent-Elect. Perhaps the time might now be right to exchange Embassies?

Queen Magrat had pursed her lips and said, yes, that's _politics_. I want to see people in need are being shown common human decency and those poor children are being cared for by _somebody_. Besides, the Castle Guard has got some interesting new recruits!

Three former Princes had now been exiled to Lancre with their families. Verence and Magrat had received the fathers. Shawn Ogg had whispered something in the King's ear. Verence had nodded and tentatively suggested that there were always openings for part-time Royal Guards. He understood they'd been found jobs of value to Lancre, but at least part-time?

The three ex-Princes had looked at each other, then fallen to their knees and offered their assegais, haft-first, for the King to touch. Verence had blinked.

Apparently, Bekki had explained later (she was the nearest thing to a Howondalandian cultural expert in Lancre), merely being asked to guard a King was a great honour. Bekki had recollected things her mother and Ruth N'Kweze had said. She supposed it was a lifeline to an exiled Zulu shorn of all social rank and by implication warrior status. A way back. A new King to honour. Bekki felt Verence now had absolutely loyal Guardsmen who'd give their lives for him. Bekki had added that it was like the Agatean thing, _ronin_. A _ronni_ is a samurai without a lord. A _ronni_ gets a second chance to serve a lord, he knows it's probably his last chance, he gets status and place again and is absolutely loyal, even if he starts at the bottom. Verence, you've now got _ronin_.

"Not that Shawn wouldn't, he _has_ fought for you on two or three previous occasions. But these men come with their own spears and they know how to use them." Bekki had said. She had taken a deep breath. The _Not-The-Red-Death, That's-Her-Mother_ thing had been patiently explained by Magrat. Magrat had also pointed out that Bekki was a, what do you call it, _isangoma_. Like _me_. A user of, what's the word, _muti_. Do not offend _{{female-users-of-muti}}._ Not in this country.

"A great saving." Queen Magrat had said. "But it's not as if we can't afford to pay them these days, Verence."

Adding in a few older sons, the Ceremonial Guard Impi of the King of Lancre now numbered eight men. Shawn Ogg was the nominal indula. **(4)**

Bekki had seen him being patiently instructed in the Way of assegai-and-flat-hide-shield, and had grinned to herself. You got to see some sights in Lancre. She also accepted she was now interpreter to the newcomers: everyone in Howondaland could speak Xhosa, it was a sort of common tongue **(5).** She busied herself learning Zulu and trying to teach a few useful Morporkian phrases to the newcomers. _{{Not-The-Red-Death, Despite-Appearances}}_ was now accepted by the Zulus, after one or two initial misunderstandings.

Then the request had come in from her mother and Godsmother Alice.

Bekki was busying herself supervising the Zulus in tidying up a barn where thirty people could unpack bedrolls. Mum had said _"do not make it excessively comfortable or luxurious"._

She sniffed. It still smelt of recent piggy occupants. That was inevitable. But at least it was clean.

Then she thought about the logistics of feeding thirty-odd guests. Mum had been clear here too. _"Do not make it a three course restaurant meal. Plain, adequate and nutritious will suffice."_

 _There's always pork,_ Bekki reminded herself. Petulia had said to her to use what's needed from the cold store.

* * *

 _To Verence, King of Lancre._

 _From Ruth Sisiwayo N'Kweze ka Ceteshwayo, Victor over Muntab, Slayer of the Muti-Demon, and so on and so forth, Paramount Crown Princess and Queen-Regent Elect of the Empire of the Mthezwe._

 _Via Pegasus Service duty pilot._

Your Majesty.

My father, who is unfortunately indisposed at the moment, has asked me to reply to your letter. He sends warm greetings as between brothers and stresses that delegating this task to me is not meant as insult.

He asks you to consider that it is possible you will soon be dealing directly with me, as Paramount Monarch of the Empire. Therefore his thoughts on this matter are mine also.

I am pleased that suitable positions such as swine-herding and cesspit cleaning have been found for my half-brothers, who are now in the position of learning humility and rehabilitating themselves as subjects of the Empire. My father also wishes me to communicate his sincere thanks that their wives and his grandchildren are being treated with kindness and decency.

Please stress that their children may be able to return to the Empire, subject to pledging loyalty to the Paramount House, as and when they come of age. The sentence of exile only applies to their fathers. I did not wish to split up families and cause distress to the innocent. Assure them from me that loyal Zulus who have spent time in lands outside the Empire, and who have seen life in other cultures, will always be valuable to me.

I am pleased my brothers have sworn loyalty to a new King and are being kept occupied and out of harm's way. Using them as Royal Guardsmen, with Witches discreetly keeping an Eye, is an elegant measure. You will, I think, have loyal men. They know they will receive no third chance. Not from Witches.

And speaking of Witches, I have been in communication with miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes. Bekki is now growing out of the charming naivity she displayed as a child and learning to assess people with something of her mother's shrewd eye. She seems to consider my brother Yazu, who I note tried to kill her on their first meeting, is expressing regret and is contrite at being led by a half-brother with much more power and charisma into doing something unwise, which led to his exile. I have plans for his brother, currently too powerful for me to act against with impunity, which do not include the option of exile.

Yazu, according to Bekki, is now prepared to accept reality and pledge fealty to me as Queen-Regent. I know that while weak and easily led, he has his strengths.

When he has lived in Lancre for long enough to know your people, and if my father is still alive at that point – the rumours are unfortunately correct, and Lord Vetinari will have advised you? – I would petition Father to pardon him and appoint him Prince Ambassador to the kingdom of Lancre, as per your wise suggestion. If I am then Queen, I will do this myself.

Please keep Father informed as to who you intend to appoint as Lancre's Ambassador to the Empire? I will ensure they are received and accredited.

Please convey my love to Bekki. And my respect and sisterly affinity to Queen Magrat.

With fraternal and sororial regards

 _Mpandwe, Paramount King_

 _Pp Ruth, Paramount Crown Princess and Queen-Regent Elect._

* * *

 _ **The road to Pork Scratching, Lancre**_

"I'm going to take the point of view that some small and portable objects, which fell out of my pack because it was improperly sealed, have been retrieved by you, and you are very kindly bringing them back." Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons said, without looking round. She was engaged in routine care of weapons and was diligently oiling the blade of a throwing knife. Strictly speaking she should not have been carrying them, but her teachers appreciated certain realities of life. Besides, it was understood that for a first-year pupil, Famke had at least a First-Year On The Black level of proficiency with them and some rules could therefore be relaxed, at her teachers' discretion.

"Thank you for retrieving them. I appreciate that."

Famke tossed the knife up, watched it describe two full circles in the air, and caught it again by the handle.

"Waily. We've been rumbled!" a voice said, from vergeside undergrowth level.

"Aye. But the wench is still only a bigjob." another more truculent voice grated. "She cannae bid the Feegle!"

Famke shook her head.

"Fair point." she said, unaffronted. "I know from speaking to my older sister that we bigjobs are best advised not to give orders to the Nac Mac Feegle. I can only _ask_ for you to bring the things back."

Famke carried on juggling knives, expertly. A second knife joined the first in the air.

"I would like to draw it to your attention that my big sister is one of the exceptions to that rule and she _can_ give orders to the Feegle. Care to remember what the exception is?"

Famke let this sink in for a moment or two. Then she said

"I'm not the sort who goes running to her big sister for help when she gets into bother. Not at all. I prefer to sort things out _personally_ when I can. Ask anyone here."

"That's true." Thora Bryttasdottir said. She was watching with interest and had also clocked the Feegle in the undergrowth. Connie Muthelezi nodded her assent.

"I will, however, make a point of telling my sister Rebecka Smith-Rhodes about how kind and thoughtful and helpful you all were when things fell out of my pack, and I might not have noticed. You might know Beccs? She's one of the Witches in this area?"

"Oooh. Nasty." Connie said, with deep appreciation.

Somebody in the undergrowth said

"Waily! 'Tis the sister of the Hag! We're doomed!"

"Aye, laddie. The one Miss Rebecka calls the Tykebomb. 'Tis trouble to all who offend her!"

Several Feegle, sheepish and with heads bowed, came out of the bushes with small items they'd discovered in peoples' packs. Not everything was Famke's.

"Thank you." Famke said. "That surgical alcohol from my first-aid kit costs a fortune and it's hard to replace when you're twelve. People get suspicious and ask what you want to use it for. Oh, and were you planning to _drink_ that methylated spirit? Not good for you, and besides I need it for lighting fires."

Famke turned to Connie and Thora. She tutted.

"Campfires. Cooking fires. _Legitimate_ uses!"

"Never thought you'd use it for anything else, Kay." Connie said, her face earnest.

Famke grinned at the Feegle. Because it's always useful to make friends, she said "Come and tell me about yourselves. Especially about the thing with Miss Band, and why she's so arsy right now!"

The spokesFeegle grinned.

"Aye, lassie, kin and sister to our Hag. I can tell ye the tale of Miss Alice Band, Archie-ollolloll-o-geest! And what befell her at a Feegle mound…"

"Aye, the Long Lake Clan stitched her up a treat, no mistake…" **(6)**

"We'll relate the tale, so that the lassie can report to her sister, the Hag, that we treated her well. Now hist to the tale! Once, a lassie called Alice came to a Feegle mound..."

Famke grinned. The break from the march now held interest as well as relief… two throwing knives returned to her hands and she re-sheathed them in her boot-tops. Then she sat to listen. With luck Miss Band and Mum were engaged rounding up stragglers further down the trail and telling them they'd get a shorter rest-break because they couldn't keep up. It'd be ages before they noticed.

 _ **Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland.**_

Suki van der Graaf, writer-of-news, one who would pursue a promising story just about anywhere with the tenacity of Sam Vimes pursuing crime, relaxed back in her seat. The cold, hard, uncomfortable chair in a spartan interrogation room at the Bureau of State Security's headquarters.

She'd expected this. The plainclothes BOSS investigators had come to the newspaper offices and politely requested she join them for a little chat. There was no point in resisting, and anyway she'd primed her father. She nodded to the Editor. He nodded back. His next call would be to send a messenger boy across town to alert her father at the Bureau of Foreign Affairs.

She then went with the BOSS men, knowing the secret police could only go so far with a white person, at least on a first interrogation. She would not, for instance, end up committing suicide by throwing herself out of a very high window. That was for black interviewees. **(7)**

And the interview, under caution, had followed the usual depressing pattern.

 _We know you illegally entered the Zulu Empire and fraternised with the enemy. You made no secret of this and even got the story into foreign newspapers. You were travelling under the alias of Marilyn van der Medelander and using false Sto Kerrigian documentation. You have been treating with the enemy, and the sentence is a very severe one. Who did you speak to, and what did you say? Remember, we know more than you think…_

Suki had sighed and patiently told the truth. Repeatedly. It occurred to her that BOSS really didn't like her and had probably been looking for an excuse to arrest her for quite some time. She suspected the manila file on the table was hers: it was big and fat and thick.

Then her father had arrived. She had expected this too. Being Foreign Minister and a senior cabinet minister had privileges. He had lambasted the BOSS men and demanded to know why his daughter had not been offered a lawyer.

And Vatti was not alone. Suki considered his companion. She had met the lightly-built dapper General once before, in passing, a little over ten years before, in Smith-Rhodesia. She wondered if he remembered: he'd only been a Kolonel then, and he'd been more interested in head-hunting her cousin Mariella for the Slew **.(8)** Suki had received a courtesy introduction and had then been disregarded. After that, she'd only ever heard of him at second-hand, through his growing reputation.

But she relaxed. Time to play her ace. One that did _not_ involve calling in a favour from Charles Smith-Rhodes. She was saving that for absolute last, if everything else failed.

She stood up and offered her hand.

"General Dreyer, isn't it? Pleased to meet you again. I got all the iconographs you asked for. Shame they're not with me at the moment, they're back in the office. I got to see practically _everything_ in Princess Ruth's kraal, and I was wondering when you'd turn up to debrief me."

Crowbar Dreyer frowned for a second, then his face turned to delighted amusement as he worked it out. Pieter van der Graaf, Foreign Minister, smiled slightly. Suki steeled herself for the telling-off she _knew_ she'd be getting later.

"You did? _Knew_ I could depend on you!"

Suki looked grave and serious.

"I couldn't tell the gentlemen from BOSS as this is so secret. Hush-hush." she said, with the air of a patriot sacrificing herself for her country.

Some time later, Suki was released with a caution. It was accepted she'd been on business of State importance, and these things could be overlooked. But the acid expression on the BOSS men's faces could have corroded steel.

* * *

 _ **Highmost Pigmanhey, Pork Scratching, Lancre:**_

The expected Assassin party arrived late in the afternoon. Bekki and Petulia welcomed them. Bekki quickly hugged her mother. She wondered about hugging her Godsmother, but felt she should be more formal as she was in Alice Band's world here, in front of her pupils. And Godsmother Alice looked a little bit put out by something… and joys, Ampie was here, so nice to see him..

"Welcome to Highmost Pigmanhey." Petulia said. "I'm sure you've all had a long journey on foot, we have an evening meal in preparation, if you students would care to make your way to the accommodation we set up according to the request from your teachers…"

Petulia paused and took in Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who was in her usual Veldt clothing. It occurred to Petulia exactly how much she looked like an older version of Bekki. Then Petulia thought again.

"Doctor Smith-Rhodes, isn't it? Bekki's mother? I'm so pleased to meet you at long last. Look, I don't know if Bekki explained it to you, but I really need to make you aware of something…"

And then the yard was full of armed Zulus. Or it seemed that way. Bekki counted them later and realised there were only five, two men and three boys. And looking slightly bizarre in that they were wearing farming boots and bib-front overalls. But still with shields and assegais. Bekki wondered why they felt a need to carry them _everywhere_. Then the words _warrior culture_ crossed her mind.

Then she realised Mum had reacted – her machete was out. And it wasn't just Mum. Famke had got a bloody machete from somewhere – _who gave it to her?_ – and was charging the Zulu boys, yelling her own war cry.

" _Ons vir jou, jou bliksems!"_

Bekki found herself stepping between them and yelling

" _Stop! Bly! Misa!_ For goodness sake, somebody grab Famke!"

Then Bekki was gabbling, in a mixture of Vondalaans and Xhosa, explaining. Mum stood back, but did not sheathe her sword. Alice Band was doing the thing with the palm of her hand and her forehead. Yazu circled back, his assegai raised. There was the regular thumping sound of weapons clashing, steel and wood and hide. The Zulu youth Famke had selected was hastily retreating, just about managing to counter her blows. He looked panicked. His fellows gathered around him as a bloc. One took a step towards Famke but had to leap backwards even faster.

Bekki looked round. Thora had produced her axe, but was just standing there. Watching. Their friend Connie, the Zulu one, was looking worried, as well she might. And Ampie… he had been carrying pioneer equipment. Not weapons as such. But she saw him drop his pack, retrieve a pickaxe strapped to the back of it, and step forward. The other students looked indecisive.

Bekki made a decision. "Connie? I need you. Talk to them. Explain this… oh, and Famke? FAMKE? BLY!"

Connie Muthelezi relayed Bekki's words to the Zulus. Who untensed slightly but did not lower their weapons.

Petulia took over, urgently speaking to Mum, who nodded. She did not take her eyes off the Zulus. Bekki ran across the yard.

"Famke! Dabu! Take three paces back from each other RIGHT NOW!"

Abstractly, Bekki noted Dabu's shield had been hacked through, almost to the centre-pole. The bisected hide flapped from the pole. She hoped no wound had been inflicted. She quite liked the young Zulu boy. She also needed to cool her sister down, as she was bouncing on her feet like a small angry swamp-dragon with red hair. And a very big sword. Which she had every intention of using for the intended purpose.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. Lower your weapon and stand back. _Thank_ you."

It was Alice Band who had spoken. She wasn't shouting. Godsmother Alice did not need to shout. Ever.

"You too." Bekki said to the Zulu boys. "Please. If we all keep our heads, then nobody is in any sort of danger here." She added "Trust me. An _isangoma_ is speaking."

Bekki saw her mother smile slightly, then she nodded at Yazu.

"Miss Muthelezi, translate my words." she directed.

 _Err… The isangoma mrs Gristle has told me you are ex-Prince Yazu, formerly a commander of an impi, now exiled and stripped of rank and privilege. That you found work here. That owing to a regrettable misunderstanding, you were prepared to fight my daughter, believing her to be the one you call The Red Death._

Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled slightly. She waited for the translation to finish.

 _Well, you were wrong. You are now looking into the face of the true Red Death. She is here, ex-Prince Yazu._

Johanna smiled again. Then she laid her machete on the cobblestones of the yard and stepped back from it. She nodded at the Zulus.

 _You may now seek to kill me if that is your wish. I am unarmed._

Bekki noted the slightly disbelieving looks on the faces of the student Assassins. _Mum is never weaponless. What's she doing?_

Yazu and his brother looked at each other. Then Ex-Prince Yazu stepped forward and made the warrior salute. He laid his assegai on the ground, close to but not touching Johanna's machete, and stepped back from it. He prompted his half-brother, who did the same.

Then Johanna made the warrior salute back.

 _Good. We can talk now. And afterwards, you may go away and say you looked the Red Death in the face on what could have been a field of battle. And you lived. Listen to me, Yazu: our homelands are a long way away. We do not need to fight here._

Johanna glanced over, and added, in _Vondalaans:_

"And if my other daughter would like to sheath that sword and rejoin us, I should be pleased. _Dankie._ Oh, and Mr duPris? You may return that pickaxe to your pack now. Well done for thinking of using it, but the need for it is over."

Petulia Gristle breathed out.

"Well, I think after that excitement, everybody might appreciate a nice hot cup of tea. Don't you?"

She nodded at Johanna.

"I've got Rooibuis." she said. Bekki brought some over."

Then she patted Dabu on the shoulder. He was crestfallen at the ruin of his shield, and alternatively casting wary looks at Famke. She was glaring at him, meaningfully.

"Made of oxhide, aren't they? Well, if you can't fix it, I can get you some more. Make a new one. Lots of oxhide to be had in Lancre. Oxhide availability is not a problem. Err. And be thankful the girl didn't take your arm off. New arms are harder to get, and the nearest Igor is ten miles away."

She nodded at Famke.

"Bekki's lively sister, I believe? Well, _the fight is now over._ Let that be an _end_ of it, young lady. And I hope you calm down after a hot cup of tea and a biscuit? Thank you."

Famke, Bekki reflected, pushed things. A lot. Bekki hoped her sister had got it that a Witch had just said, in as many words, "Push me and I push back. Harder. So do not chance it." And when Petulia got emphatic and didn't use "errr…." as punctuation – she meant it. Famke might be nutty, but she wasn't stupid. Not by any means.

The excitement having receded, everyone got on with things.

Bekki joined Mum and Petulia and the Zulu men, who were sitting in, what was it, _indaba_ , with Connie translating. Weapons, including Mum's machete, were stacked to one side, carefully out of anybody's reach. Bekki gathered this was normal for a peaceable discussion between enemies.

"Dankie, mutti." Bekki said, in Vondalaans. "That could have been worse."

Johanna nodded.

"And when exactly were you planning to tell me there are Zulus here, Rebecka?" she said, pointedly.

"Err…" Bekki said. Her mother scowled slightly, then grinned.

"No harm done." she said. She nodded to Yazu and the others. "Interesting people to talk to. Ruth _did_ say a lot of her family were being exiled here. Didn't expect to see any in Lancre, though."

Bekki went on to where Godsmother Alice was supervising the students in laying out bedrolls, and calming them after the disagreement.

"Last place on Disc you'd have expected to see a replay of the Battle of Lawke's Drain." Alice remarked.

"Well, you and Mum managed it at the Tobacco Fields." Bekki remarked. **(9)**

Alice smiled. "Yes. She did, didn't she? But of all the bloody silly things to happen. Exiled Zulu warriors offered sanctuary in Lancre. Meet a party of Guild students which includes White Howondalandians. Who promptly re-enact Lawke's Drain in a farmyard in Lancre. Well. You couldn't expect anything else, could you?"

Alice shook her head.

"Only on the Disc." she said. Then she grinned. "you've got to laugh. Now it's over and nobody got hurt. But did you notice, Bekki? Your sister's _first_ response was to draw and fight. And she did bloody well, too. She's an Assassin. Even if charging in like that was hot-headed and irresponsible, but never mind, I can talk to her later about that. Once your mother's finished talking to her."

Alice looked reflective.

"And that young man you're seeing. He knows his country's history too. And your family's. They say Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes fought an entire battle using only the pickaxe he'd grabbed when they were surprised by a native attack. And _of course_ he reaches for a pick. Your people have got some _very_ good ancestral memories, haven't they?"

Alice shoulder-hugged Bekki.

"Good to see you again."

Bekki hugged back.

 _ **To be continued. Finally – the Witch Trials…**_

* * *

 **(1)** see my tale _**The Lancre Caper**_ , in which Alice discovers that archaeologists need to be a damn sight Stealthier than that to succeed in Lancre. Lara Croft herself might have had problems here. Now imagine _that_ as a video game…

 **(2)** Miss Jocasta Wiggs had assisted on an Expedition to Lancre. One of _those_ regrettable accidents had happened involving an unexpected slurry pit used for safe disposal of porcine effluent. Lancre folk had apologised afterwards, found her a place to clean up, and said it's just that everybody knows where it is, miss, so no need to put up any warning signs…

 **(3)** Another callback to _**The Lancre Caper.**_ Go on. Read it. You know you want to.

 **(4)** Verence had added this as a PS in his peer-to-peer letter to King Mpandwe, asked if this was alright, and hoped this was not giving undue offence. It seemed a _waste_ not to use trained men in an occupation they were good at.

 **(5)** Everyone except the whites, as black Howondalandians snarkily pointed out. After meeting Bekki, a honest man might add the caveat "except her, of course."

 **(6)** _ **The Lancre Caper**_ again. But you'll have read it by now?

 **(7)** Alas, really true. Black militant activist Steve Biko committed suicide this way, from a tenth or eleventh floor interview room at BOSS headquarters in Pretoria. Apparently he'd killed himself to make the government look bad, and was a fanatical African National Conference terrorist (and a communist to boot) who had chosen death at his own hand, rather than crack under a robust but wholly legal questioning session conducted in full accordance with South African law, with every consideration given to the prisoner (including unlocking and opening the windows and taking the protective grilles off them, so as to air the room). As an explanation, this is on a par with West German authorities maintaining that left extremist Herr Meinhoff wrested a gun from a policeman in a desperate struggle whilst in detention, and then managed to shoot himself in the back of the head, six times, purely to make the West German authorities look bad. Or the one that has been repeated all the way down the line from Sharpeville to Soweto through Bloody Sunday in Derry and most lately in Gaza – that cowardly armed terrorists were hiding in the shelter of an illegal demonstration to use protestors as human shields, and that's why our men had no choice but to shoot back. Funny how _that_ script keeps recurring.

 **(8)** Edit, Jan 2019: putting right a minor inconsistency: it dawned on me after re-reading the story that Suki had indeed met the Crowbar before and this was not their first encounter. Go to my tale _**Gap Year Adventures**_ when they would have been socially introduced at a _braa_ i in Smith-Rhodesia.

 **(9)** to my tale _**Bungle In The Jungle**_


	49. Resolusies en ooreenkomste

_**Strandpiel 49**_

 _ **Resolusies en ooreenkomste – Resolutions and agreements**_

 _ **And so we come back to the story. Second impression - first round of typos and minor corrections. Keeping the momentum going!  
**_

 _ **The City of the Inkonyami, The Zulu Empire.**_

Swords clashed in the morning air. Although it was only seven in the morning, a crowd had gathered, a wide circle of warriors drawn from both the Lioness Impi and Denizulu's personal household troops. Most of his command had left after the Presentation to go to their own assigned bases: a single impi, a normally-sized command of maybe eight hundred men, had remained with the honour of guarding their General, and by extension, the Queen-Regent-Elect and the Heir. Male and female warriors were three or four deep, delineating an arena and watching the sword play with fascination and deep interest.

The two black-clad fighters circled, watching each other and looking for the opening, as their faraway instructress in Swords had taught them. They had learnt their lessons well. Emmanuelle de Lapoignard would have expressed pride in both.

Then they closed to combat again. There was a susurration of anticipation from the crowd as the swords clashed again. This was the sort of thing they _liked_.

Thrusts, parries and slashes were exchanged for quite some time as the two fighters danced around each other, sweating with the exertion.

Then at last one made an error.

Sharon Higgins, Licenced Assassin, Dark Clerk, and Ankh-Morpork's Consul to the City of the Lionesses, felt the point of the sword at her throat and bowed her head slightly, acknowledging defeat.

" _Je me rends_." she said, according to formula. She reversed her sword and offered it hilt-first to the victor, as custom dictated.

" _Bayede_ , your highness." she said.

Ruth N'Kweze took the sword, grinned, then lowered her own weapon and returned Sharon's own sword.

"Keep it, I've got plenty." Ruth said. "Thank you for the workout, by the way."

Sharon sheathed her own sword, then made a quick kneeling curtsey to Ruth, as manners dictated. Another whisper of approval ran around the crowd. Sharon felt relieved. She'd been assured that the word had been put out that this was a training bout and even though an Assassin was going for the Queen-Regent-Elect with a sword, she was not doing it with the actual _intent_ of assassinating. They were simply sparring, training together. Therefore nobody needed to step forward and protect their Princess. You are all, however, invited to watch.

Ruth and Sharon, who had graduated from the Guild School in the same year, clasped hands. They understood each other. It made sense for Vetinari to have assigned Sharon here as Consul.

"Something Johanna warned me about." Ruth remarked. "Having a baby wrecks your physical fitness, and you have to work hard to get it back."

"She's had three. She should _know_." Sharon replied. "Glad to assist, Ruth."

"Appreciated." Ruth replied. "Frankly it's a bit of a slog. Johanna warned me it's tough at first, but it gets easier."

The circle of warriors made obeisance as Ruth walked through them. Several ventured admiration at their iNdula's prowess with the _ikhlwa_. Ruth grinned back and thanked them, ensuring she used their names, and telling them _the sword is a discipline all of its own, but can be learnt. And now you will have seen how a warrior with a sword moves, and have perhaps been thinking of counter-moves with your spears. When time permits, I will seek to teach you to counter swords. I learnt the fighting styles of our potential enemy from White Howondaland, and I know the Red Deaths. The elder Red Death taught me the fighting skills of her people, after all._

Ruth looked at Sharon, and added, in Morporkian:

"Relax. I'm not planning a war with them any time soon. But as Vetinari knows, if they ever move against me, I can rethink that. But not until then."

"No first strike." Sharon said.

Ruth nodded.

"But if _they_ strike _first_. We counter them."

Sharon accepted this.

Speaking of the elder Red Death." she said, thoughtfully. "That story the Pegasus pilot brought with her about a fight in _Lancre_ , of all places."

Ruth nodded, and grinned.

"My half-brother Yazu. Exiled from this country. Gets work herding pigs in Lancre. Then he runs into Johanna. And by all accounts, into her _family_. Just not his day, is it? Fancy a bite of breakfast?"

The two laughed and walked on.

 _ **Highmost Pigmanhey, Lancre:**_

Petulia Gristle folded her arms and glared downwards. The people being glared at were not comforted by the fact Rebecka Smith-Rhodes was standing next to her, also tight-lipped and glaring. A certain amount of _tapping of the feet_ was happening.

The assembled Feegle in the yard at Highmost Pigmanhey were not comforted by the fact two other women in black hats were standing alongside Petulia and Bekki. Granted, those black hats were not pointy. Given their profession, it was a different, more stylish, and exquisitely millinered, sort of black. But if a woman wearing _this_ sort of black hat was annoyed with you, it was bad news.

"Tell me again." Petulia said, taking a deep breath. "For the attention of Doctor Smith-Rhodes and Miss Band. Who were rather inconvenienced, and somewhat annoyed, and who would _also_ appreciate an explanation. No hurry. In your own time."

Johanna Smith-Rhodes nodded, emphatically. She'd been advised to leave this to the witches. Johanna, who knew something about Feegle, was happy to let Witches handle things. Alice Band, standing next to her, had once confided her own past experience of Feegle, in a reluctant and "this is between us as best friends" sort of way, over a drink late one night. Johanna had taken note. **(1)**

Several hundred Feegle were there, mainly from the High Hog clan but with contingents from other clans who had graciously been invited to watch the big fight and have a bit of fun at the expense of yon Alice Band, aye, laddie, the same yin oot of the story, she's back in town.

All were standing with heads lowered, in a sort of collective foot-shuffling awareness that they'd annoyed the Hag this time, nae mistake.

There was an embarrassed silence. Under four thermonuclear glares, there was a certain amount of shuffling, nudging and pushing going on among the Feegle. Eventually a spokes-Feegle was pushed, unwillingly, forwards. A wide circle formed around the young Feegle who suddenly realised he was standing alone out there. Nobody wanted to stand too close.

"Err… it's like this, Mistress. _Mistresses_." said Wee-Archie-Aff-The-Midden, looking small and woebegone. "As ye ken, ah wiz in Ankh-Morpork on the Hogmanay. That is, Hogswatch, ye ken? Ah wiz deliverin' Miss Rebecka tae her kin, alongside oor Gonnagle… errr… and ah got tae meet her kin."

He looked up at Johanna and ventured a nervous placating smile. She did not smile back.

"And ah met the one as the Zulu people calls the Red Death, and ah was in thrall tae her presence and her majesty and her person…"

"Less flattery. More explanation, if you please." Petulia said. Johanna nodded.

"Ah came home wi' the tale, and related it to my people. How oor Miss Rebecka comes frae a clan o'great fighters, akin to bigjob-sized Feegle, and nae mistake, doon tae the red hair, an' everything.."

There was a chorus of "Aye, ye're right there!" from the Feegle, and similar remarks of agreement. Petulia nodded.

"An' we witnessed how Miss Rebecka drew her claymore and she wiz prepared to fight they big Zulu scunner here in the yard. Nae magic, the big cludgie wiz prepared tae fight oor wee young Hag, and she wiz ready tae fight him back."

Johanna looked over at her daughter. Bekki went slightly red, but held her mother's eyes. Johanna looked away and down at Wee Archie again.

"Tae be honest, we wiz a bit disappointed there wiz no fight an' she chose tae treat with him. We wiz looking forward to seein' him bein' took tae the cleaners."

"There was a misunderstanding." Petulia said, firmly. "Rebecka is sensible, and understood. As did Yazu, who is my guest and my employee. But _do_ continue."

Wee Archie swallowed.

"Aye. Well, Mistress. We had oor scouts oot. They met scouts frae other clans. After the fight, oor way of greetin' each other, ye understand, they exchanged _in-tell-ee-gence_ , as we do when oor scouts meet, and they conveyed the news that a party of young bigjobs was coming this way. They said they knew the one leadin' it was the renowned _arck -ay-olll-oll-o-geest_ Alice Band, who has a certain fame in oor tales…"

Wee Archie wilted under a glare from Alice, then recovered himself.

"So we followed the party, so as to have a little harmless mirth at Miss Alice Band, who appeared uncomfortable to be in Feegle lands again. And so as to be sure she wiz not carryin' a _spade_ of any sort, ye ken? And we saw none other than the Red Death herself wiz with her. And we held council, and we thought – surely the Red Death has heard that her eldest child, oor wee Hag Miss Rebecka, was unjustly assailed by a Zulu in this land. She wiz here tae seek vengeance, as a mother will when her child is attacked. And we thought – there is certain tae be a big fight."

"And just to make sure, you tipped off our Zulu guests." Petulia said. "You went to Yazu and his half-brothers and their families and said _Hey, china! Ye got_ **trouble** _comin' your way! Best grab your spear, know what I mean?"_

Wee Archie nodded.

"An' we gathered here. Tae watch the big fight. So as tae see the Red Death in combat."

Petulia took a deep breath. She had been aware of a gathering of Feegle in and around the farm and an aura of excited anticipation. When the misunderstanding had been defused and the combatants had put down their weapons, with the student Assassins sent to prepare their accommodation for the night, she had clapped her hands and demanded the Feegle come out here, _now_. I want _words_. The yard had swiftly filled. Alice and Johanna – and Yazu and his band – had looked at each other, wondering what _this_ was all about.

"You put the word out. _Come and see the big fight_."

"Aye, mistress. Our bookie Honest Billy wiz layin' odds, ye ken."

Archie swallowed. Braver Feegle were stepping forwards.

"Aye, Mistress. We wiz disappointed when the Red Death laid her claymore down and pretended to be defenceless."

"Aye, dinnae be daft! We ken how _that_ one goes! Ye puts your sword down and holds up your hands and your enemy disnae ken ye hiz a knife in each sleeve an' two more in each boot-top, so ye gets him wi' _craft_!"

This time Johanna did smile. The thought crossed her mind as to whether it might be permissible to recruit a couple of Feegle as Guild pupils. Just to see how it went. An experiment. **(2)** They'd worked out _instantly_ what her back-up strategy had been, something that had eluded many of her pupils.

"Aye. We got tae see how the Red Death would h' fought. Wi' _craft_ and _cunning_."

"Valued skills among the Nac mac Feegle." Petulia said. "Carry on."

There was excited murmuring among the Feegle.

"'Tis true we did not see the Red Death fight." said a larger Feegle. "But when they Zulu whelps ran in wi' the spears held high an' they started a battle song. We saw the wee girl draw her claymore an' shout a war-cry of her own, an' without a moment o' pause, she attacked them. 'Twas stirrin' to see!"

This time Johanna blinked as several hundred Feegle throats took up a roar of

" _Onnz for yow, yow blaksims!"_

"'Tis a stirring battle-cry, mistress." the large Feegle said, as the echoes died. "A war-cry of your people?"

" _Ja_ , you _could_ describe it es thet." Johanna said. She wondered whether or not to translate it and decided it could wait. She shook her head. Cultural transmission took many strange directions.

"The wee human whelp." said a Feegle. "Kin tae ye and tae miss Rebecka? I hear she is called the Tykebomb."

There was loud admiration.

"Sister tae oor Hag. Daughter of the Red Death."

"Aye, Reckon she's a Red Death tae?"

"Nae, laddie. Too wee tae be a Red Death. And forbye, she didnae actually _slay_ anybody. Maybe she will grow intae one."

"Aye. Ye _could_ well name her the Red Headache, maybe?"

Alice Band shook her head.

"The Red Headache." she said. " _Famke._ That's aiming too high. Wrong end of the body."

Then there was movement among the Feegle and the throng parted. The Feegle appeared to be standing aside. Respectfully.

And the Kelda appeared, flanked by guards. Petulia and Rebecka made a respectful bow. Kelda Peigi, an older Kelda in what looked like late middle age, bowed back. She looked up at the two Assassins.

"Miss Alice Band? Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who is mother to a Hag? I apologise for the behaviour of my brothers and sons and the problems this posed for ye both. The news arrived too late for me to forbid it. There will be no repetition."

The Kelda looked up. She smiled. Angus Og, the gonnagle, stood beside her.

"Now I would speak with ye, if ye would?"

At a nod from their Kelda, the massed Feegle gratefully ebbed out of the yard and vanished.

"Cup of tea, Peigi?" Petulia offered. The Kelda indicated her thanks. Petulia nodded at Bekki, who went off to the kitchen. Bekki was relieved normality had resumed: the youngest Witch always made the tea.

She paused and looked at her mother and Godsmother.

"I could use a couple of people to help with the meal for tonight?" she asked.

Alice Band nodded. She looked at the student Assassins, who'd been watching the phenomenon of massed Feegle with some interest. Younger Zulus were dotted among them, accepted as idle-minded bystanders.

"Plenty of people standing around with nothing to do." Alice said. "Grab as many as you need, Bekki? _My_ instructions."

Bekki grinned, and went to choose volunteers.

* * *

Later in the afternoon, Petulia Gristle went to find Famke. The witch glared at her.

"Got a job for you." Petulia said. "Your mother suggested it and said it would be a good idea. To keep you occupied and out of trouble. Follow me."

Famke, realising she was potentially in trouble and that this was not a person to annoy, despite appearances, followed.

She was led to a place where there was a table and material laid out. Dabu, the Zulu boy was there. The two looked at each other, doubtfully. Famke noticed her friend Connie was there too.

"Here's how it is." Petulia said, folding her arms meaningfully. "You two have got fences to mend. _And_ a shield. Your mother tells me you did Basic Craft with Miss Tanner? Well. You know what leatherworking tools look like. I've tried to match the colour."

Petulia nodded down to the oxhide and strips of leather on the table.

"You hacked a bloody great hole in it." Petulia said. "You can fix it. And you can get to know each other while you're doing it. Constance, thank you for being referee. That's appreciated. _And no fighting on my farm._ Got it?"

Petulia nodded and swept out. She did not look back.

Famke grinned at Dabu. The Zulu boy smiled back, nervously.

"My mother makes these for the impis." Connie said. "I know how to do it. Let's make a start, shall we? And I'll tell you about shield-culture while we work."

 _ **The City of the Inkonyami, The Zulu Empire.**_

Sharon looked down appreciatively at her breakfast plate. She and Ruth weren't alone; two maids stood attentively in the background and Gupta, Ruth's personal cook and something of a manservant these days, hovered, ready for the next command.

Sharon laid the melon rind down on her plate, then wiped her lips.

"You couldn't really do the Full Morporkian in a country like this." she said. "Too hot, for one thing. This is refreshing. Pleasant. Melon and, what do you call it, _granadilla_. Fruit salad for breakfast."

"It serves." Ruth replied. "Gupta, some more _lassi_ , please?"

Sharon watched the turbaned man, Ruth's cook and more and more these days, her butler, step forward with a glass carafe of the milk-based drink. She speculated on what sort of weapons he was carrying. That colour and style of turban denoted a sort of Ghatian warrior caste. There'd be a ritual knife concealed somewhere in the binding and the _pugaree_ that held it all together could be a lethal weapon in its own right. The Guild of Assassins taught people _thoroughly_ about these things. Especially about the sort of otherwise unremarkable domestic servant who carried concealed weapons, what sort, and where they were likely to be concealed. Sharon rather suspected Ruth had a battle-butler of her own now. Another line of defence.

"But why do you call it _Toledan bacon_ , though?" Sharon asked, curiously.

Ruth smiled.

"Long story. Back in the days when White Howondaland was a colony, the Ankh-Morporkians sent over a colonial governor who had a Toledan wife. Their immediate servants were white, local Vondalaanders, because, well, you can't have beastly smelly blacks near a refined Ankhian nobleman, can you?"

"Indeed not." Sharon said, with a very straight face. She had been a Scholarship pupil at the Guild school who had come from a social class that provided servants to the nobility, who conceded the lower orders might be beastly, but could be taught to bathe and serve their betters and be jolly glad for it. Sharon understood apartheid. In a way it applied to white people too. Sharon had, she considered, been born black in Ankh-Morpork.

"Anyway, his wife was from Toleda. She insisted on fruit for breakfast, usually melon. The Vondalaanders took some patient training to get used to the idea somebody might prefer _vrugteslaai_ to lots of _vleiss_ for breakfast. A completely alien idea. So they called it _toledansespek._ Toledan bacon **.(3)** For some reason my people picked the word up."

"Oh, yes." Sharon said. "The celebrated White Howondalandian sense of humour."

They spoke about the relatively new Ankh-Morporkian consulate for a while. Consulates were normally secondary offices and out-stations of Embassies in strategic locations across the host nation, reporting back to the Embassy in the capital city. They could be ad-hoc affairs operating out of a single office, a downstairs living room, or in extreme cases a tree-house in the jungle, a mobile cart on the nomadic trade route across Klatch, or an adobe building next to a stagnant oasis in the desert. **(4).** The consul was usually part-time, somebody otherwise gainfully employed in the host nation and performing an additional service for duty.

This consulate was different. It had been purpose-built, deliberately so, in the midst of the growing township of guest workers imported from elsewhere on the Disc to help build Ruth's city. Its stated purpose was to look after the interests of Ankh-Morporkians living and working far from Home. And it was far more fully staffed than you'd expect for a Consulate. A team of Dark Clerks were based there, and security was provided by a rotating detachment of Ankh-Morpork City Watchmen. The Pegasus Service now called regularly. Usually a Pegasus might visit a Consulate as seldom as once or twice a year. Pegasi came here two or three times a _week_.

Sharon Higgins, a Dark Clerk who had risen in the Service, was Consul. Sharon was, among other things, applying herself to learning Zulu. Ruth appreciated this.

Other nations had followed on. Klatch also had a Consulate here. Cross-continent flying carpets visited. The Uberwaldeans had sent a mission, as had Quirm and Brindisi. Ruth was dealing with polite requests from Sto Helit and, of all nations, Lancre.

It was all good: Ruth had heard that Crowbar Dreyer could be contemplating an attack that deliberately targeted the civilian settlement, something that would of course be profusely apologised for later. Well, any attack that stood a chance of taking out an important country's diplomatic mission would be a massive international own-goal. Vetinari really had given her an insurance policy, and because of that she could tolerate a certain amount of _informal diplomacy_. It was good to know who other peoples' spies were, for one thing. And right now she was having breakfast with one.

 _ **Highmost Pigmanhey, Lancre:**_

"The central pole is the _mgobo_ , the heart of the shield. Everything else builds on this, so it _has_ to be strong. Fortunately you only nicked it. The ox-hide took the force out of your blow."

"I was aiming for his _fingers_." Famke said, mildly. "That hand-hole in the middle, where you grip it. Got to be a weak point."

Dabu shifted uneasily. Connie frowned at her friend. The three of them were busy rebuilding the damage Famke had inflicted in the fight.

"But _anyway_." Connie said, meaningfully. "This is the _umbumbulazo_ shield. The sort issued to new members of the impi. You were in the youth impi, weren't you, Dabu, before your family had to… leave in a hurry?"

Dabu nodded, ruefully.

"That is true." he said, in careful Morporkian. "I, my brother, and my cousins, who you met out there. We had begun the training. When we left our country, we were allowed to take our weapons and shields with us. As a courtesy."

He looked again at Famke. She grinned back. Famke, cooled down now, had realised the Zulu boy, while tall and well built, was only a year or two older than she was. That made a sort of difference.

"You get it here, then it gets damaged in a fight. With somebody who's White Howondalandian enough for it to be an issue."

Connie inspected the damage again. The ox-hide had been split all the way down to the centre pole. _Usually a warrior who survived a fight like that would get a new shield. But the usual logistic back-up isn't available here. Never mind, we can fix this one…_

"We can back the repair in this thinner leather." Connie decided. "Like Miss Tanner taught us. And we can use these strips of dried gut to add a new line of binding ties. Got to be square, though, and in line. Stop just standing there, Kay, and help me mark the leather. Thank you."

And a sort of détente emerged.

* * *

"So how did you get here, Ampie?" Bekki asked him, curiously. "You start out in a family with a _plaas_ just on the other side of the Vaal River. Then you get to come to Ankh-Morpork to go to school."

Ampie had volunteered to help with the food preparation. Several students had opted to work with them. For Ampie, the draw had been the chance for time spent with Bekki. She accepted this.

" _Mina, gaan jy die slaai gemaak?"_ Bekki asked another student. _"Dankie."_

Wilhelmina Steenhuis grinned back and set about preparing a salad. Another student looked blankly at her. Bekki realised only three people in the kitchen spoke Vondalaans. She switched to Morporkian.

"We need salad for at least thirty people." Bekki said. "Needs a lot of lettuces chopping up. Give Mina a hand, could you? Thanks."

"We could use your sister." Helen Guthrie said. "She'd have no trouble at all chopping up salad for thirty. Not after what she did to that Zulu shield."

Bekki shook her head.

"Listen. Long experience. We try to keep Famke away from sharp knives." she said. "Saves bother. I can't _believe_ she was allowed to carry a machete."

"Summer. Narrow trails, overgrown on all sides." Ampie said. "Miss Band wanted people up front to hack the undergrowth away. She reckoned it would burn off some of your sister's spare energy, and give her a legitimate reason to chop at things with a sword."

 _And to scare off the Feegle_ , Bekki thought. _Godsmother Alice usually has more than one reason_. The thought occurred to her that Alice Band might have been provoked to the point where, as she would know full well from her own experience, the Feegle might have got annoyed with a bigjob swinging a machete near them. She speculated for a moment on her sister versus Feegle, and shuddered slightly.

Bekki turned back to Ampie. He was chopping a large side of pork down into manageable pieces for the pot.

"So. How did you get here?" she asked.

Ampie told his story. Younger son of a farming family, just on the Free State side of the Vaal. He'd realised early that a life of tending cattle and sheep and things was not for him. He'd also realised, from experience of following his fathers and older brothers into sporting pursuits, that there had _got_ to be better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than fifteen-a-side. Ampie had got through various under-seven, under-eight and under-ten sides by being the sort of player who is enthusiastic, shouts a lot, joins in, and is _just_ too slow to get to where the ball happens to be. On those rare occasions he had to actually catch the ball, he always made sure to pass it on, before the fuse exploded. He had got a wholly undeserved reputation for being an enthusiastic steady player and a good man for the team, a bru and an oke, exactly the opposite outcome to what he wanted.

What he _did_ like doing was to go to a remote corner of the family _plaas_ with an old military cornet his father had kept since Army service, and play it. At first this had been banishment – if you're going to play the bloody thing, go to the old barn at the end of the field, you hear me?

Then he had appreciated the solitude and time on his own, something close-knit farm life did not usually permit. And he'd learnt how to coax notes out of the old instrument. A kind uncle had then given him an old saxaphone that, well, it was only gathering dust, you may as well get some use out of the thing.

Ampie had found his instrument.

He also discovered that the Guild of Assassins School in Ankh-Morpork was selecting for candidates for its annual draft, of fully sponsored students to be trained overseas. There were eight places.

Ampie might have shrugged this off as something of minor interest, not of concern. Then he read about Ankh-Morpork and discovered there were _lots_ of schools of music. Far more of them, and training people to a higher standard than Rimwards Howondaland could hope to match. With careers to be made as professional musicians.

Ampie looked down at the saxophone. People had expressed surprise that he could play so well, he had a feel for the thing, and he was self-taught, too.

Then he had an epiphany.

The Assassins' School taught music, didn't it? It had a really good reputation for its musical teaching? Okay, so it also taught people to kill people, but _vorbei_ , you didn't have to practice afterwards, it wasn't compulsory. And it opened doors in Ankh-Morpork… and did he want to be a farmer the rest of his life, and a good _bru_ and an _oke_ in the team on a Saturday?

He started to pester his parents.

Resignedly, they sent off for the application forms.

"He's _almost_ a farmer." his father had said. "He's _almost_ a fifteen-a-side player. Ag, I do not think his heart is in it. And his older brother inherits. I'm not short of sons. If he wants to do this, wellnow, let's give him a go. Make a plan."

"And that's how the nickname started." Ampie said to Bekki. " _Amper. Almost._ People made it _Ampie_ after a while _."_

And a not-quite-eleven-year-old Ampie had arrived for the six days of selection for one of those eight places. To find he was one of a hundred and eighty applicants. From all over the nation.

At that point in Ampie's narrative, Petulia's husband walked into the kitchen. He seemed unsurprised and unpeturbed to find it full of people.

"How-do." he said, sitting down at the table. "Bekki, love, I could use a cup of tea. Hear there was a bit of a commotion earlier?"

Bekki sighed.

"You _could_ describe it that way, yes." she admitted. She made a pot of tea – another pot of tea – and briefly described the afternoon's events to Gouther Mossock. He listened, in his usual unperturbed sort of way.

"Can't say as how I'm surprised." he remarked. "Heard about Lawke's Drain once. Big fight there. Reckon you people is like Borogravians and Zlobenians. Happen, whenever you meet, there'll be a ruckus."

He looked on, reflectively. "Only it's easier to tell which side is which, as one lot talk funny with reet peculiar accents, and the other lot have got black skins. Handy, is that."

"Err…" Bekki said, uncertainly. Her look took in three of those people from forn parts what talk funny, with those reet peculiar accents. Ampie, Mina Steenhuis, and Luci van Tonder were trying not to look amused.

"May I introduce everybody?" Bekki said.

* * *

After a while, Petulia Gristle walked in. Johanna was with her.

"Right, I think that's all sorted out now." she said, amicably. She looked around at the large pots on the cooking range, and took in some very large bowls of side salad.

"You've all been busy. Thank you. Cup of tea, Jo…Doctor Smith-Rhodes? Thanks, Bekki. Anyway. Change of plan. I've been talking to Doctor Smith-Rhodes and to Miss Band. We're inviting the Zulu families who are resident locally. _All_ of them. So you can all get to know each other. Socially. It's hard to pick a fight when people are eating together. Err. This is Lancre, after all. Difficult, but not impossible. And this being Lancre, you can just _bet_ people are going to turn up who haven't actually been invited. In search of a free dinner. So I'm going to have to ask. Can we double the quantities? I'm sending out to the village stores in Pork Scratching for what's needed, if you can make a list, Bekki?"

She turned to Johanna. Bekki's mother said "Give me the bills, Mistress Gristle? I'm sure I can get it on Guild expenses. It is the courteous thing, efter all."

Bekki looked doubtful.

"Short notice." she said. "The stew in the pots should be done by eight. Not sure if I can guarantee a second batch can be done by then."

Ampie stepped forward.

"Mevrou Gristle, may I make a suggestion?" he asked. "Mr Mossock says he hes griddles in a storehouse here. You are a pork ferm. Bekki tells me she hes ettempted to make _boerewois_. I would like to try it. It should not be difficult to set up a _braai_."

"That's their word for a barbecue cook-out, the lad tells me." Gouther said. "It's a good idea, our Petulia. And that forn sausage Bekki was making looked the bee's knees."

Bekki reddened slightly. She'd asked Petulia if she could give it a try. _It's a sort of pork and beef sausage with spicing. It needs to hang in a cold store for a day or two, but it's good. Might be a good line to sell in Ankh-Morpork, as there are so many Howondalandians there these days._ She wasn't sure _how_ good. It had been only her second go at making 'wois.

"Cen you build a _braai,_ Mr Mossock?" Johanna asked. Gouther scratched his head.

"Ain't never seen one of _them_ before, so I'm not reet sure." he said. "I can knock up a barbecue, though. The lad can help."

Johanna nodded.

The big _poetjie_ stew, then. With _braai_. End _slaai_. Good, we hev a plen. Go with Mr Mossock, mr duPris."

Bekki put her head together with Petulia and they made a shopping list. They collected a couple of sacks each and grabbed their broomsticks, so as to get to the shop before it closed. Petulia felt they needed lots of bread to go with the barbecue meat and the meat stew. Johanna gave her daughter twenty dollars and instructions to being back some sort of itemised receipt.

* * *

And elsewhere, the repair job on the shield was completing. Famke had given up on the leatherworking tools as too impossibly blunt to cut holes in the thick hide for the stitching. She had produced a throwing knife with a very sharp point. Dabu had taken several steps backwards. He looked worried. Connie had done some reassuring, and guided Famke's hands.

"Got to keep the slots you're cutting _absolutely_ in line with each other". She said. "And when you thread the long strips of hide through the holes you've got to keep it _flat._ Like bootlaces. The binding should be square and flat and tied really tight behind. That's good, you're getting the idea."

"Your mother makes these?" Famke asked. Connie nodded.

"Family thing. We're leatherworkers and shield makers. In the old days, a man going into an impi might have his shield made as a gift by the woman he loves, or a girlfriend who loves him…"

Famke noted the shy look that passed between Connie and Dabu. She reflected that Dabu was only, at most, a year or two older than Connie. She fought a mighty battle with herself and decided to say nothing. Just, you know, _watch_. This, she thought, might be _fun_.

"Making the shield is women's work, anyway. Symbolic, I suppose. And there are lots of impis and _lots_ of men needing shields. It's how mum makes her living. Did I mention the colours are symbolic? People like Dabu start out in the youth impi with a completely plain shield in one colour. Usually very dark brown or black. Then after his first fight, he'll be issued a new shield with just a little bit of paler contrast, from a cow or ox that's more piebald. The old black shield gets passed down the line to a new recruit. The shields get paler the more fights you've been in. Till you see real old-time veterans with practically white bleached leather shields. Problem is, he's not in the impi at the moment, so he can't get a new one from his inzindula, and he'll just have to make do with his recruit shield, mended."

Dabu smiled, uncertainly.

"I thank you both." he said. "At least the mended tear will advertise that I was in a fight. And I lived."

"I wasn't doing it for _your_ benefit." Famke said.

"It was a mighty blow, though. And I can say I fought my nation's deadly enemy in battle. And lived. I am no longer a raw recruit."

He paused, then gave Famke a speculative look.

"The deadly White Howondalandian foe, she who the little people named _The Red Headache_."

"Don't push it." Famke warned him. "Connie, what are you doing?"

Connie was speculatively examining a large piece of dark oxhide. It had a contrasting pattern of paler brown.

"I'm thinking. If we can get hold of a good thick pole to be the _mgobo_. We've got the hide. I can cut a shield to shape. We've got leather and gut strip for the bindings. Dabu really needs a new warrior shield. You know. To show he's been in battle."

"You can make a whole new one?" Dabu said, excitedly.

Connie looked back at him, shyly.

"Two or three hours work. Just needs a _mgobo_ pole."

"A Zulu girl will often make the shield for a warrior she admires and quite fancies…" Famke said, in a low voice.

"Don't push it, Kay." Connie said.

Famke grinned.

"I'll go and scrounge up a pole, shall I? Gives you both a chance to be on your own together."

* * *

 _ **More coming. This is getting too long and the day is too late. The next bit will deal with Famke's talking-to from her mother and Alice Band. Readers who inquired about this were right. There will be one. And then, the Witch Trial. Got a few party pieces set up by various witches, and Nanny Ogg will be in it. Ampie has yet to meet her.**_

 _ **To be continued. Finally – the Witch Trials…**_

 **(1)** Johanna understood these things. After all, Alice had been there to witness Johanna's embarrassing moment of over-confidence concerning a unicorn. Everybody slipped up, as an Assassin and general adventurer. If you were able to feel embarrassment over it later, you counted yourself lucky.

 **(2)** after reflection, she decided it was an experiment that should remain theoretical. For now.

 **(3)** Absolutely true. Only in this case it was the Spanish wife of the British governor of the Cape Colony. Their Dutch-African domestic servants had never before come across the idea somebody might want a meat-free breakfast, and were duly incredulous. _Spaansespek_ is now a recognised Afrikaans word for any sort of melon.

 **(4)** Mariella Smith-Rhodes and Rivka ben-Divorah encounter all three sorts in their _**Gap Year Adventure**_.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and I'm Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.**_

 **Reply to PM from treader**

 _ **Thank you! This is an underused aspect of the Ponder-Johanna marital dynamic: that when he's moved to be emphatic, she listens. I think once there was a moment where she was dropping with fatigue but wanted to keep on going: Ponder grabs her and physically carries her over to the bed, saying "no. Sleep!". And she doesn't argue or fight him off. I don't think he's come over as heavy with his daughters yet: but there's always going to be a first time. Probably with Famke. I quite want to explore the father-daughter dynamic here... glad you're enjoying the tale! When Real Life allows - have to earn a living too - there will be a next chapter. I have it roughly plotted. (resolution of the Battle of Highmost Pigmanhey, in which a little bit of Howondaland finds its way to Lancre. Or possibly a little bit MORE Howondaland.) Famke learns a lesson, bridges are built, an armistice is signed, lots of Feegle appear - haven't done much of the High Hog clan yet, save for Archie, Angus and by inference Kelda Peigi. And Bekki is Tried in front of a crowd. Also provisional ideas: Ruth (S-R-S) meets two Imps called Leominster and Jack. Who help advance a musical idea. The Thaumatological Park gets a "Bring our Daughters to Work Day" - Ruth gets to see some of the things her dad Ponder does for a living, and they fire her imagination. Shauna gets her first job after leaving school. Famke comes home for the summer hols. Bekki eventually ends up in the Watch barracks learning how to be a copper. Oh, and she gets to break Boetjie into an oddly-configured saddle. After Watch training, she goes to stay long-term with an aunt and uncle in Howondaland. It's all sketched out. I just need time to write it.**_

 _ **The Other Thing: that footnote where I made reference to recent events in Gaza. Some readers didn't like it. Errr. Fuller response later, but added this to my creator page on tvtropes…**_

 **The Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement:** The author does not want to lose readers and is always prepared to engage in discussion on the themes of his work. South Africa, as it used to be is fair game for comment as this is now pretty much history. As well as darkly, bleakly, funny. Modern Israel requires more care as the Big Issues are still current - so the portrayal of "Cenotia" skips the controversial bits and focuses more on what there is to like about that country and its people, especially the bits that even Israelis find absurd about themselves and are prepared to laugh at. Cenotia, for instance, has no "West Bank" or Gaza Strip - but it _does_ have the, err, "Golem Heights". The wisdom of avoiding the controversies was recently proven when a single stray reference to events in the Gaza Strip - in a _footnote_ \- provoked flak from Israeli and pro-Israeli readers. While the author isn't going to delete that footnote any time soon and considers it justifiable in its context, this is possibly going to be the only time his thoughts on events in that part of the world are going to be aired in a Discworld context. Occasional digs at Donald Trump have also provoked critical response - but come on. That man could have been invented as a Discworld character...

One necessary correction: German radical left activist **Berndt Andreas Baader** was the one who died in a German prison in dubious circumstances involving an implausible suicide. I might have said it was Meinhoff who died this way: Ulrike Meinhoff weas the other, distaff, half of the Baader-Meinhoff Group. Who from this distance sound like a Krautrock experimental rock band along the lines of Kraftwerk... **  
**


	50. Keuring van Keuse

_**Strandpiel 50**_

 _ **Keuring van Keuse – passing selection (part 1)**_

 _ **And so we come back to the story. Blimey.. half a century's worth of chapters… playing with the idea of closing this monster down and re-opening Strandpiel Book Two – Arrival in Howondaland… second quick edit to eliminate previously un-noticed typos and do very minor revisions...  
**_

 _ **Finally – the Witch Trials…**_

 _ **The Meadows, Lancre:**_

Hosting the Witch Trials usually rotated between Lancre and the Chalk. Places like Escrow, which now had its own thriving community of Witches, were also petitioning for the honour. The local tourist board was eager for the prestige **(1),** but mainly for the revenue.

Most usually, the annual convention of the Disc's witches was held in one of the two big centres of the Craft. This year it was Lancre's turn, and the large common meadow outside Lancre town, one of the few really large flat spaces available, was laid out as an arena and festival site, a performance area roped off in the middle and the usual inevitable carnival of tents, stalls, hopeful bunting, and marquees all around.

It was a fine summer day in Lancre, in defiance of the usual climate, and crowds were already gathering, even in the earliest morning.

Bekki and Ampie had arrived early. Ampie had been granted the favour of flying in as her passenger, with both Mum and Miss Band allowing him the privilege in recognition of his having performed outstandingly well with the travelling Assassins' School group. The rest of the Field Trip were on their way in by foot and would arrive later on in the morning. Bekki hoped there would be no more little misunderstandings of any kind. The Battle of Highmost Pigmanhey **(2)** had been two days before. She shuddered at how that might have gone. There'd been an impromptu _poetjie_ supper and _braai_ that evening, and the Assassin school party had moved on in the morning, to start covering ground into the heart of Lancre. Bekki had accompanied them, local witch and Guide, for the next day and stayed over with the party the following evening at their next rest-stop. It had been held to be wise that they had a chaperone. Just in case. Bekki had also joined in with the informal training sessions and had got to see her mother in action as a teacher. _That_ had been interesting.

"Come on, Ampie." Bekki said, after she'd registered her intention to compete and had been given an approximate time-spot. "You never finished telling me about how you got to be here in the first place. I'm interested."

They found a place to sit, away from the crowd, and watched the broomsticks being held in the ready-to-land circuit above the field. There were a lot of them. Bekki was pleased they'd arrived early.

Ampie turned his eyes away from the spectacle. He abstractly noticed that witches who arrived on the Pegasus flying horses were automatically given precedence and allowed to land first. He found it interesting that they seemed higher in the pecking order.

"Sophie's coming over later in the morning. She'll be with Irena or Olga and they'll be bringing Rosie and Boetjie over. Our colts." Bekki said. "I think that was Hanna von Strafenburg. She's Überwaldean. Does the runs to places like Müning, Blondenburg and Bonk. Gets on OK with Olga and Irena, considering. Then again, we're all Witches. Now. Tell."

Ampie explained.

The application forms having been received, instructions had been sent back for the Candidate to be brought to a location near Bloemfontein with sufficient appropriate clothing for a six day stay. The Candidate should be escorted by at least one guardian, and the party was expected to find local accommodation and support themselves for a period of up to seven days. Expenses for this would not be paid. Ampie's father had grumbled at the cost and inconvenience, but Ampie's mother had said not to be so stingy and it might make for a nice stay. Bloemfontein is not called the City of Flowers for nothing.

They had arrived, staying at a _plaas_ nearby, owned by relatives. And the next morning, punctually at seven-thirty, Ampie and his parents had been delivered to an intimidating mass of people gathered, for justnow, at a theatre in the city. Ampie came from a people who were usually widely spread over a large area and who only came together in numbers like this once in a blue moon. Being in a city, and Bloemfontein was the largest he had ever seen, was also overpowering. The rented theatre was the only venue capable of accommodating several hundred people all at once. And, on the stage, they saw the people who would be Directing and Selecting.

 _ **Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland.**_

Suki van der Graaf had no objection to other people paying for dinner. Especially when the other person was General Crowbar Dreyer. He was incredibly newsworthy. And, she was forced to admit, an incredibly personable guy with lots of charisma. _And unmarried_ , the little voice said in the back of her head. She tried to shut it out. _There isn't a Mrs Dreyer. Never has been_. the voice went on. _Yes._ _ **Exactly**_ **.** said the inner Suki.

The Crowbar thanked her for the iconographs, the _unpublished_ ones, and said he wished he'd thought of that as a way of getting somebody into Princess Ruth's base. Posing as somebody from Sto Kerrig and taking advantage of the fact she offered open house to journalists. Professionally nosy people with iconographs. _Maar,_ that must have taken ba… _guts_ …

They discussed Suki's recent illegal-twice-over foray into the heart of the Zulu Empire for some time. Crowbar Dreyer made genuinely appreciative noises as she described her trip. He was especially interested in her impressions of Ruth, and admiring of the fact she had – briefly – shaken hands with Paramount King Mpandwe himself, probably the first White Howondalandian ever to have done that and survived to tell the tale afterwards.

"I think he suspected." Suki said. The journalistic party had been formally introduced to the King after the Presentation. They had seen the man behind the formal regality: fat, jolly, benevolently disposed and with the appearance of a man who had seen the joke and understood he was the punchline. Suki had noticed the bottle of Bearhuggers and a glass within convenient reach of his right hand. She had also noted Ruth's personal assistant, Chakki N'Golante, behind his right shoulder, introducing each journalist by name and paper. Chakki had announced Marilyn van der Medelander from Sto Kerrig with a _completely_ poker face.

"But you got away with it." Crowbar remarked. "Ag, they say he's a man who admires courage and cunning. Is he as ill as the rumours say?"

Suki shrugged.

"If he is, he's hiding it well. Public face. But the whispers are that it's some sort of gut cancer and he'll be dead inside a year. Eighteen months, tops."

Suki felt vaguely uneasy in talking about her trip. The inconvenient voice of Conscience, that often got in the way of her profession of Journalist, was making critical noises that this was somehow abusing Ruth's hospitality and understanding. She reminded herself that Ruth had explicitly said to tell the Crowbar, when she met him, everything she'd seen and experienced. Ruth had reminded her she was likely to need some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card when she returned Home, and that having invited the world's Press to freely see her place, she couldn't complain if they went home afterwards and talked about their experiences. _Besides, there isn't much you can tell Dreyer that he doesn't already know. I can work around that._ Suki wondered if this was all part of the game, for Crowbar Dreyer to get a visitor's honest impressions as to, for instance, how well guarded and organised Ruth's city was, a sort of _come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough_ , challenge.

"She's got artillery." Dreyer said. Suki saw a hint of worry cross the Crowbar's face. "From what you describe, the sort of simple, low-tech, things that still pack a punch, but simple enough for Zulus to use and keep in good order."

Suki had seen the artillery park. She wondered if Ruth had intended this. For her to go back and tell people. Suki had been politely dissuaded from taking iconographs and her minders had tutted and looked disapproving that she'd shaken them off for just long enough to see something that - _apparently_ – she wasn't meant to see. She had, very deliberately, left this out of her published account, sensing this would be part of the _get-out-of-jail-free card_ , or at least the small print on it.

They moved on to other things.

"So there's never been a Mrs Dreyer?" Suki said, politely. The Crowbar grinned.

"Came close, well, _close-ish_ , a time or two. Never found the time, Sukes. And you?"

Suki noted the affectionate diminutive.

"The same." she said. "Hard to find somebody who can put up with coming second to what you do. And that you're hardly ever there, the job takes you all over."

Crowbar Dreyer nodded, understanding.

"There was somebody once who made me wonder." he said. "Junior officer, like me. Just out of the academy and both of us in the Slew. At the time we didn't have fighting women soldiers, well, not officially. We've learnt, since. But _maar_ , that girl could _fight_. Woman was a Ghatian tiger."

Dreyer looked uncharacteristically reflective for a moment.

"She moved to Ankh-Morpork. Married a guy. Hear she has children now."

Suki smiled slightly. The journalistic part of her mind was cross-referencing people and other stories.

 _ **The Meadows, Lancre:**_

"That looks like a crockett crease in the middle of the field." Ampie remarked. He indicated the narrow rectangular strip in the middle that had been lovingly flattened and tended with a lot more care. Bekki nodded.

"Yes. The Lancre town side plays home games here. Against the other towns and village sides. King Verence is eager for some sort of wider league. Inviting teams from elsewhere. You know, some sort of _test matches._ A Lancre-wide eleven, the best players, testing itself against the best out of the Shires and Ankh-Morpork."

Ampie nodded. Bekki guessed he was evaluating the merits of the place as a Crockett ground. She added, out of devilment

"In the autumn, when people don't play crockett much. Some of the young men from Lancre do eleven-a-side and fifteen-a-side and play here. Oh, and the new version Uncle Danie gets sniffy about, the thirteen-a-side code that he thinks is neither one thing nor the other. **(3)** Jason Ogg grumbles that all these new-fangled sports are stopping young men from trying out for the morris-dancing side. That's big here too."

Ampie nodded.

"I wonder if I could talk to Simon and Mr Bradlifrudd. If we could bring a Guild team out here. Lancre is an interesting place to visit."

Bekki smiled the smile of a Lancre-resident Witch who knows a few things more than other people do. She reflected on the thought of the patrician Simon Anstruther, a boy who in some indefinite way got up her nose, facing Jason Ogg **(4)** lumbering down the field to deliver a very fast and accurate delivery with a small hard crockett ball.

"Yes." she said, thoughtfully. "That would be a _very_ good idea. I'll introduce you to a few people later."

Then she grinned at Ampie and squeezed his arm.

"Come on. Tell. How you got selected ahead of a couple of hundred others to get here."

 _ **Bloemfontein, Rimwards Howondaland, nearly seven years earlier:**_

After initial registration and Induction, the parents and guardians had been assured their sons and daughters would be looked after with the appropriate degree of vigilant care. They had been politely dismissed, and the Candidates had been escorted to a nearby school that the Guild of Assassins had rented, out of term, for the day.

The group of a hundred and eighty Candidates, who were now looking at each other to size up the competition, were moved into a large hall that had been laid out as if it were an examination room, with rows of desks and chairs. What looked like examination papers were laid out face-down on the desks.

Ampie blinked. This wasn't what he had been expecting…

Ushered to take places, the Course Director, who had been introduced as Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen, addressed them. She reminded them that examination rules would apply here. And for the next two hours, until we break for lunch at twelve, you will complete the required questions to the best of your ability, unseen and unprepared. Except where directed, you may complete the entrance exam in Vondalaans or Morporkian, whichever is your first language. Vondalaans speakers among you, the majority of us, must note that several sections of the paper are to be completed _only_ in Morporkian. Morporkian is the teaching language of the Guild School, after all, and we are testing you in your fluency in the language. If you cannot adequately speak Morporkian, you will _struggle_. Thank you, and you may turn the papers over and begin now.

The paper itself wasn't a problem to Ampie. It tested basic competencies in maths, language comprehension and scientific skills, and asked the candidate to write a short imaginative essay on a given topic. He had regarded Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen. Early to middle twenties, possibly a lot nearer to twenty than thirty, a woman immaculately dressed in black, young as an adult, but all adult women look impossibly old when you are barely eleven. She looked austere, but Ampie sensed _sympathetic_ was in there somewhere. She had reminded the Candidates that she too had undergone this selection course, when she had been not even eleven. The Guild had therefore asked her to assess and direct this crop of potential students. She stood at the front of the hall with the other Directing Staff, scanning the room. Their eyes met for a second, and Ampie realised he was being assessed. It felt uncomfortable. He went back to the key topic that he realised he _must_ try and answer in Morporkian. The question was simple. But simple questions often call for complicated answers.

 _Why do you want to become an Assassin?_ Closely followed by _Why do you believe you are good enough for the Guild School?_

And in the afternoon there were _physical_ tests. A man called Mr Bradlifrudd administered these. Ampie understood he was Head of Physical Education at the Guild School. The PE master.

* * *

"My Tannie Mariella." Bekki said. This interested her.

"Indeed. I knew enough to know the Smith-Rhodes family are influential people. But the family relationship did not become apparent to me until I arrived at the School."

* * *

And by the second day, the hundred and eighty Candidates had become less than a hundred. While Mr Bradlifrudd had been putting them through it, in a cheerfully merciless way, the other Directors had been reading and assessing the morning's exam papers.

"I don't speak your language, much!" the PE Master had said. "But I've been told your country's Army calls this _die boempie trek_. The bumpy road. Well, we're on the bumpy road now!"

All the Candidates had been issued a tabard with a big number on it. Periodically, Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen would appear, confer briefly with the other Directors, and numbers would be called, or somebody who had faltered in the physical training would be tapped on the shoulder and told to fall out. They never returned.

Later on, Ampie realised the purpose of the first two days was to weed out the dreamers, the hopeful-but-unsuited, and the no-hopers. By Day Three, only eighty people remained. Ampie was pleasantly surprised he was still one of them. The course now became more direct, more personally focused. Other skills were tested. Mr Lensen, another Director who in his turn had once undergone this course, took them through elementary weapons skills, learning to dismantle, reassemble and fire a standard crossbow. Some Candidates washed out here too. Ampie wondered if he was related to, or perhaps the husband of, the pleasant Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen.

And by the morning of Day Five, there were thirty-two.

Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen addressed them personally. Ampie realised she was taking care to address them all by name, not just by tabard number.

"Listen to me." she said. "You have all done fantastically well to get this far. And you now present us with some agonisingly difficult choices to make. I'm satisfied that _any one of you_ would be a good student at the Guild School. _All_ of you would be good students. But we only have eight places to confer. Not thirty-two. Three out of every four of you will not make it. That's a hard fact. We now have to select, out of thirty-two excellent candidates, the eight who are completely _outstanding_. And that's going to be hard. Let me say this. If you end up as one of the twenty-four. You have not failed. You are not deficient as people. Whatever school you go to will receive a glowing testimonial from us as to your skills and abilities and talents. We will recommend you as potentially outstanding people. And not being selected here is not the end of the world. Not at all. I'm pleased to have met you."

She nodded to Mr Lensen and the other Directors.

"Now let us start."

 _ **Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland.**_

"Listen. I'm here for a fortnight or so. Maybe longer. Necessary office work and conferences at the Octagon **.(5)** Got an assignment to inspect the combat-readiness and efficiency of the Ceremonial Guard, and a licence to put them through it if they're _not_."

Suki nodded. She suspected her father had been active and had used influence to separate the Crowbar from his command for a while, thus putting a big block on their inclination to go out there and look for trouble with the neighbours. Assigning him to inspect the decorative but suspect-as-soldiers Ceremonial Guard, the brigade charged with static duties in the capital city and looking good for tourists, should keep him occupied for a while. And soldiers who had grown fat and complacent in a posting they had hitherto thought far away from any trouble were in for a shock, too. Trouble was on the way, and it was called General Crowbar Dreyer.

Suki grinned.

"I'd love to be kept informed on that." she said.

"Don't see why not. I'll give you an off-the-record or two you can get in the papers. To show _all_ our Army is combat-ready, and what we do to ensure it stays that way."

He looked at her speculatively.

"Maybe when we have dinner next?"

"Okay." Suki said.

 _ **Bloemfontein, Rimwards Howondaland, nearly seven years earlier:**_

On the morning of the last day, the thirty-two Prospectives were called, one by one, to a final interview with the Examining Board. Ampie had been steeling himself for sympathetic looks, a handshake from the Examiners, and the sad news that unfortunately, pressure of numbers, etcetera…

He waited for his number to be called. He noticed that, as the people in the room dwindled, those called to the office did not come back the same way. So those remaining could not infer or ask as to who had been Selected. They were being kept in the dark, deliberately. And they were being watched, too. Ampie gathered this was another Test. To assess how well people reacted under stress, in a waiting room where they were, deliberately, being under-involved and had time to let it dwell on them. Time to think.

He had produced paper and pens from a pocket and was playing simple games with two of his fellows. Just to pass the time.

And then, late in the morning, he was called.

The little voice in his head said you're still in the game. _Horses routinely win races at four-to-one odds._

He politely knocked, and entered.

The five examiners were in line at a long table. Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen was in the centre, flanked on one side by the genial Mr Bradlifrudd and the pleasant blond guy Mr Lensen. On the opposite side was Mr Retief, who had been introduced as the Guild's Resident Chief Assassin in Rimwards Howondaland, and a dark-suited man who had _not_ been introduced. Ampie suspected he had the look of Government about him. The resident BOSS man in Vaalvaaser, who Ampie had had pointed out to him, with instructions to be wary, had the same aura.

There was a single chair, set directly in front of Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen. Ampie was invited to sit. He noticed this paced him on a slightly lower level to the Examiners. There was a long intimidating silence while the five members of the Board scrutinised him.

Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen smiled. Ampie, with the dim awareness of these things which begins awakening in boys of around eleven, realised that sitting this closely to her, he could smell her perfume and that she was, in some respects, incredibly beautiful. It was intoxicating. He tried to consider her as something more, a _lot_ more, than the impeccably arranged red hair and the paler redhead's skin with the dusting of freckles. **(6)**

"Andrijs Hansie duPris." she said. "Known to his femily es _Amper_ , or _Ampie_. But here, just Cendidate Twenty-Three."

She was speaking Morporkian. Ampie recognised the language choice.

"Twenty-Three was my platoon number, during Army recruit training." she remarked. "An odd coincidence."

Then she fired the killer question. Out of the blue.

"Explain why you wish to become an Essessin."

Ampie gulped, and thought quickly.

"Well, mevrou, you know my nickname from my femily. _Elmost._ It is because I em _elmost_ but not quite a farmer. End because I em _elmost_ but not quite a fifteen-a-side player. I have no wish to be _elmost_ , but not quite, a selected student et the Guild School."

Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen smiled again.

"Ja. I cen eccept thet. But things do not _elweys_ go according to plen. I too pessed through this Selection, with the great intent to leave this country. I hed no wish to end up running a farm, end I _certainly_ hed no great wish, insofar es I thought ebout these things, to merry a Vondalaander man."

Ampie noted the brief glance she gave to Mr Lensen. His face had a hint of amusement and wry humour about it.

"End the first proper job I hed efter graduating from the School. Was meneging a farm. Within two years efter thet I was beck home in this country. **(7)** And today, for most of the year, I menege a _plaas_."

She siged, resignedly. Again the sideways glance at Mr Lensen. He seemed a little bit amused.

" _End_ I got merried. To a Vondalaander man."

She extended her left hand for his inspection. Ampie noted the rings.

"Far more ornate than it calls for." she said. "But my husband chose them. A woman should not be so ill-mennered es to refuse."

"He values you greatly, _mevrou_." Ampie said, politely. He remembered his father grumbling about the cost of the engagement and wedding rings for his mother. He also saw another look going between her and Mr Lensen. Ampie might only be eleven. But he guessed from what he'd seen that some things between a husband and a wife were private in-jokes.

"They cost him nearly four thousand dollars."

"Three thousand nine hundred and ninety five, to be ebsolutely end precisely exect." Mr Lensen said.

Ampie blinked. Was this part of the interview? He boggled at the value. Four thousand Ankh-Morporkian dollars. Around fifteen thousand rand. Eight or nine times what many people earned in a _year_. Spent on two rings...

"Assassination pays very well as a career." Mr Bradlifrudd said, guessing his thoughts.

He looked at the rings on her hand again. She was not withdrawing it.

"The rings fescinate you, Mr duPris?"

" _Ja, mevrou_. I heard ebout Lady T'Malia, who is a headmistress end who runs Scorpion House, who teaches the _uses_ of such rings."

She looked thoughtfully at Mr Lensen, as if considering this. Then said

"Impressive, Mr duPris. You clearly did your research. It is remarkable how so many Candidates did not."

She stretched out the hand again.

"Take the rings off my fingers, end feel their weight."

Ampie hesitated. Another test?

"They may not be _those_ sort of rings. Or they _may_ be. You examine them, end tell me."

Her hand felt warm and soft, although he noticed the callouses on her upper palms and some fingers.

"You practice with swords, _mevrou_?" he asked.

She smiled.

"Observant, too."

Ampie noticed the rings slid off with some ease. He wasn't conversant with the intricacies of married life and _that_ sort of gender politics, but he thought _Should a woman's wedding ring come off so easily?_ He wondered if she was making some sort of sideways point to Mr Lensen. _Do not assume this ring will stay on forever_.

They were heavy. He weighed them in his palm. And he really didn't know what to look for. He'd heard about Lady T'Malia's rings. But where would the poison be kept? He made am experimental twist of the cluster of gems in the engagement ring. He was relieved a hidden compartment did not spill deadly poison on his hand.

"Your verdict?" she prompted him.

He considered.

"They are normal rings, _mevrou_."

"Why?"

"To be honest, I have no idea where to look for hidden compartments or surprises. But I think. You have been examining us. But you cannot kill or injure any of us. Words would be spoken. Err. Therefore you would not deliberately place one of us in harm's way by inviting us to handle poisoned rings."

All the examiners nodded in degrees of appreciation.

Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen smiled broadly.

"And you reason well under pressure. Good. Now you can place the rings back on my finger, perhaps?"

Ampie automatically went to do this. Then he hesitated. Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen raised an eyebrow, He noticed that her eyebrows were well-groomed.

"Errr.. it is perhaps your husband's place, and not mine, to return the rings to your finger, _mevrou_?" he said. He looked at Mr Lensen, who was grinning.

"You can act as my agent in this, _boykie_." he said. "Besides, I can't reach, and I'd have to get up and walk round. Too much bother, and you're sitting nearest!"

"Courteous and well-mannered, too." Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen remarked. "And he knows. Engagement ring _first_ , then the wedding ring."

"And then comes the suffering." Mr Lensen murmured.

Then the interview ratched up another notch.

"Mr duPris." Piet Retief said, in a business like way. He was a dapper man of no great height who affected a fussy goatee beard. He was also dressed in stylish Assassin black. "We have noted from interviews and from your written submissions that your emphasis, on being asked _why_ you wish to attend the Guild School, is on what you perceive to be the outstanding musical education the School offers."

"That is correct." Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen agreed. Mr Retief nodded.

"Indeed. The School does indeed offer extensive teaching and rehearsal facilities and is renowned across the Central Continent. And you want to be in a place that offers you both formal instruction and an introduction to higher musical academies for further training."

Ampie gulped again. An image of a pineapple in a fruit basket crossed his mind.

"Indeed, sir. I am told that _minheer_ Doktor von Ubersetzer is a brilliant teacher of music and has a hand-chosen dedicated staff. And that music is viewed as an essential skill to the Assassin graduate."

"Good research again." Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen said, with approval.

Retief frowned.

"Even so. The first year pupil is expected to take the point of view from the very first day that they are an Assassin, or a _possible_ Assassin, first and foremost. And that everything else is secondary to this. You could be perceived as taking the point of view that becoming an Assassin is secondary to being a musician."

There was a silence. Ampie gulped again.

"Sir." he said. "That too is true and I make no secret of it. But I also believe that only a very small number of Guild members who graduate every year go on to being _active_ Assassins. I am, perhaps, making my position clear to you right at the start, that I would have no intention of practicing?"

Silence again. Then Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen stood up. She moved to the back of the room. Ampie watched her move, registering that she was indeed beautiful. Her heels clicked. She bent down, picked up a large black case, then walked round the front of the desk to Ampie. She presented him the instrument case.

"Took a lot of finding." she said. "But I like to be _prepared_ for an interview, and to tailor it to the candidate."

She smiled.

"Your instrument, mr duPris." she said. "The saxophone, I believe? _Play it_. Treat this as an audition."

Ampie gulped again. He remembered to spit and moisten his mouth. Then he slung the strap over his neck and played. A simple tune, one he was practiced in, _Boesmanlaand._

And afterwards…

The last of the five Examiners said, in clipped and pointed Vondalaans, that we have been doing the background checks on you and your family. Should you be selected, you will be part of an élite group permitted to live and study outside this country. We like to _monitor_ such people.

"Yes. You _do_ , don't you?" Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen said, also in Vondalaans, in her harsh Transvaal accent. The civilian in the dark suit ignored this.

"You will be required to check in at the Embassy. The Security Section there will have opened files on you, and Liutnant Verkramp, the security head in Ankh-Morpork, will explain to you what is expected of you as citizens in a foreign nation…"

"We can explain all that, later," Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen said, cutting him short. It was obvious she didn't like the man. Ampie winced. Even if he hadn't made it, he sensed he was still going to get a BOSS file all of his own.

"Are you finished with the saxophone?" she said, kindly. "I have to return that later."

Ampie realised.

"Forgive me, _mevrou_. It occurs to me it might be the courteous thing to do if I were to clean the mouthpiece and the spit valve, before this goes back to its owner."

"Thoughtful and considerate, too." she said.

She turned to the others at the table. There was a low whispered conference and a lot of nodding. He heard Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen say "Well, we _should_ send Doktor von Ubersetzer a talent. It would be a courteous and thoughful thing to do. When I graduated nearly five years ago, he was already beginning to twitch, poor man."

Then she took a clipboard. Ampie could see that there were a lot of names on it. Quite a lot had red crosses against them. She deliberated, took a green pen, and placed a green tick against one name.

"Welcome to the Assassins' Guild School, Mr duPris." she said. "I hope your seven years there will be happy and rewarding ones."

* * *

"And that was it, really." Ampie said. "The eight of us who made it, and our families, were taken to dinner by your aunt and uncle. She said that as she has no plans to become a teacher at the School at any time soon, we should drop the _mevrou_ bit as it made her feel old, and just call her Mariella. Also that this man here who isn't as big a _bliksem_ as he looks, he's called Horst. Mr Bradlifrudd said I didn't _have_ to play fifteen a side, I could try out for other sports, and maybe find one I really liked. Use my first year to try out. He said he always gets incredibly physically fit people from Howondaland and he was eager to see it at first hand, so he'd grabbed a chance to come here and be part of our Selection. Also that your aunt was an incredibly good long-distance runner. He really wanted to see what it is about our country that makes for great athletes, that he really wanted people as potentially good as me, whatever sports we ended up playing. And I'm here."

"So you're here." Bekki said. She became thoughtful and relfective for a few moments.

"You know, I remember Tannie Mariella saying she wanted to get out of Howondaland and only ever go back there for holidays. That she only wanted to go back to farms again just to visit. And that she was determined never to marry a Vondalaander. And _exactly_ what she thought about Horst Lensen. She was quite _heated_ about that, I remember.""

Bekki smiled, slightly.

"I'm just _betting_ after what she said to you then, she's going to end up teaching at the Guild School for a few years. Just a feeling I get."

She looked up. Several Pegasi were approaching in close formation. Two were towing passengers on magic carpets. Bekki grimaced. Great, she'd be performing in front of...

"What do you know. My _family's_ here." she said.

 _ **Extracts from a letter to Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes, from her sister, Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen. Six and a bit years before the present.**_

The Selection went without a hitch. I know you said Gods help me if I sent you any _pielkops_ or hard bargains. But I really think the eight we picked are potentially outstanding, even Kristina de Vos.

Kristina is, in her own right, a potentially outstanding pupil or else she would not be there. But you must be aware she is the younger sister of one Anna de Vos, who was in my recruit platoon, who was the resident piemp, and who is now a captain in the BOSS. We decided to give her a place, on the grounds that it makes things easier if you know from the start who the BOSS piemp will be in the new intake. You have to have one: there was a BOSS rodent wished on us for the panel, representing our government. Giving him Kristina de Vos meant he could go away happy to make a good report, and to be fair, she merited her place. But watch her. Her family are BOSS to the core and she grew up steeped in all the bullshit. Knowing now she will go to BOSS makes her easier to manage. and you never know, seven years in Ankh-Morpork may even turn her, as it ultimately did for Horst, and she will return wiser and better-educated. I'm sure you and Heidi will attend to this, as this sort of thing gives you job satisfaction as educators.

…you will like Ampie duPris, who is an engaging young man… I fear I placed pressure on him in his final interview, sensing he is at the beginning of the _difficult_ years for a young boy. I wanted to assess how he could think and reason when his head was befuddled by nearness to a woman he clearly found attractive. It was amusing, I hope in a way which is not cruelly intended, that he couldn't quite conceal this. In the event he mastered himself commendably well, and I now feel guilty. I hope I did not overdo it and that he is not now imprinted with a thing for red-haired women and girls. If there is a failing in him, he needs to develop a streak of bliksemheid, in the best possible way: he needs to be a little bit of a bastard to survive at the School. I hope this will not be a struggle for him. I'd assign him to Viper House? Grune Nivor will like him.

 _ **7000 words. Damn. Hits my approximate upper limit for a single chapter and then goes over. also decided to make young Meisie de Vos a Kristina: there's already a Katerina in the character list and there is what tvtropes calls the One Steve Limit. Although there are good narrative reasons for six Johannas... To be continued.**_

* * *

(1) _**Escrow! Gateway To Überwald!**_ Or else _**Escrow! Gateway to the Chalk!.**_ It all depended which way you were facing. Canny burghers had covered both options with great big roadside signs on either side of the main road. And were discovering, like Flintshire or Flyover Country, that they were seen mainly as a place you had to pass through (or over) to get to somewhere more interesting on the other side.

2 **(2)** which would come to be seen as a minor footnote in the long history of fraught relationships between Boer and Zulu

3 **(3)** Thirteen-a-side foot-and-hand-the-ball was a newish and experimental thing. Factory owners like Mr Catterail had noticed that for some reason, their employees could get morose and depressed **(3.1)** and perhaps needed some sort of small relatively inexpensive gesture to keep their morale up, something to feel proud about. Catterail and other factory owners had agreed to sponsor what _began_ as fifteen-a-side teams to fly their factory and industrial colours, generously paying for the team strips and boots and things. And as they were representing their employers, then they could be paid their usual hourly rates for training and playing on a Saturday afternoon and, well, even a small token bonus for winning. This straightaway ran into trouble from the Governing Union of Fifteen-A-Side Foot-And-Hand-the-Ball who insisted the sport should be strictly amateur and players should participate for the joy of the sport. **Paid** players were against the spirt of the game **. (3.2)** The factory owners promptly seceded from the Union and set up a Foot-And-Hand-The-Ball League of their own. And people like Mr Catterail, who pointed out they were not made of money, looked to _streamline_ and _rationalise_ the game, arguing that fifteen men in a team was a prime example of overmanning, especially when you were paying them to play. They cut the team size to thirteen. And a new League was born… League-code foot-and-hand-the-ball had caught on in Lancre, out of the fact that many of the smaller towns and hamlets would struggle to be able to get fifteen men together, but might stretch to thirteen.

 **(3.1)** Somehow, factory owners like Mr Catterail never, ever, considered that issues of gloom, despondency and low morale among their workers could be remedied by measures like, for instance, increasing pay and improving working conditions. That sort of thing costs money, and do we look as if we're made of it?

 **(3.2)** this was some years before people like Johanna Smith-Rhodes started seeding the best players with the heretical idea that the _strictly amateur_ set-up, and insistence that players turned out for the pleasure of it, really suited the interests of the people who owned the grounds and stadiums, where the best teams routinely attracted between fifteen and thirty thousand paying spectators. _Do the maths_ , Johanna and Heidi van Kruger had said to players like Danie Smith-Rhodes. The background to a Professional Sportsmens' Guild is explored as a side-note in my tale _**Gap Year Adventures.**_

 **(4)** The son of the village blacksmith, who took after his father in terms of size and strength. He morris-danced to keep Dad happy, but preferred crockett. Simon Anstruther wasn't a _bad_ guy, far from it. It was just that he automatically assumed the place of a woman in crockett was to be completely supportive to her man and to dutifully go to the pavilion to serve the tea and sandwiches and cake. And nothing more.

 **(5)** the headquarters of the Bureau of Defence had been designed by an avant-garde architect who had been told to make it look big and imposing and threatening. An eight-sided building? Eight being the number of bad luck and misfortune? Vorbei, why not? The bad luck applies to anyone we fight, after all.

 **(6)** This too was intentional. The girl candidates, ones who had agreed with each other that Mr Lensen was _gorgeous_ and a _hunk_ , found in their interviews that he was in the centre chair. There was also a family joke, form Johanna to her two older daughters, that went "We are redheads. We don't tan. In strong hot sunlight we just go the same colour that everybody else starts out as. _Eventually_."

 **(7)** a calback to my tale _Gap Year Adventures_. Where all the things Mariella didn't want ended up happening to her anyway.


	51. Gradeplegtigheid

_**Strandpiel 51**_

 _ **Gradeplegtigheid – Graduation**_

 _ **Advancing the story to the point where a natural break will occur, Book One can close, and Book Two will deal with Bekki's life in Howondaland. So closing all the closeable loose ends – for now.**_

 _ **Again, wondering why this is meandering and not quite getting there, and realised that with a cast of dozens all being obediently called forward for cameos just to show they're all in there… well, needs trimming, with a lot of stuff taken out and bunged into a "bonus bits" section at the end with the main piece trimmed to tell a more economical story. I may do this in a later update.**_

 _ **now on Version 0.4. Getting there. A double-length chapter requires lots of fine-tuning. But at least something is now out there. And long: 10,000+ words. I researched Cossack sabre dancing to try to get this bit right, and... wow. Just wow. YouTube has a horrible habit of preventing me from accessing a lot of Afrikaans music on the grounds that "this is copyright to UMG who have not made it available in your country" (bliksems). But it came up with some amazing videos of Cossack women doing the sabre dance and the moves. with one sword and with two. There's an amazing song that goes with it, more of a chant set to music, and that fires the blood in a way Bok van Blerk's "Afrikaanerhart" hymn did. All I know is that the phrase "Rus molodai" recurs a lot, and the Russian title going with it is something like**_ **Если девушка казачка** _ **\- apparently meaning "If the girl is a Cossack". I did spot the "devyushka" in the middle there. This had to be honoured in the rewrite and the sabre dance thing has been expanded a little!  
**_

 _ **EDIT NOTE: The dance style is called "shashka", after the Cossack sabre. Opinion is divided: professional sword people admit it's showy and makes a great spectacle, but would have lmiited utility in combat as inevitably the two swords would get in each other's way, you could not keep it up for long in combat, and you're up against an unpredictable opponent who is capable of disrupting the rhythm and the beat, and causing things to go wrong if they know what to do. It is thought that this is a formal style originally used by Cossacks to show off and intimidate in a "see what we can do?" way. But in actual fighting they'd use one sword, as a suffiency, in the usual effective way. EDIT: there are YT videos of sword-masters in the British and French formal style who are quite critical, with good technical reason: one talks sniffily about the "moulinette" style of fighting, dismissing it as "windmilling". But come on, it looks incredible.  
**_

 _ **I also tracked down that blood-stirring song, perfromed by an outfit called VPK Klinok. (**_ _ **ВПК Клинок in Cyrillic, which opens up lots of YT videos) . Shows how little I know about things Russian despite being able to sound the words and read Cyrillic. The "rus molodai" song, meaning "young Russia", or "Russia is young", in the sense of "Russia is strong and virile", is called "Russkaya'rat". (**_ _ **Русская рать) Lyrics below. The strikingly witchy sword-dancer is called Kseira Rogers (**_ Ксения Роджерс АНО Ранг), _**who performs under the name of "Rank (or Rang? The "**_ _ **г" in Russian is like the G-K heavily voiced guttural thing in Afrikaans...). She has you-Tube videos all of her own, and, damn, somebody who looks like that**_ **has** _ **to become a Discworld witch. As do the ones who look like Olga Korbut, but who swing a mean sabre.**_

 _ **As with Bok van Blerk's Afrikaans anthems - similarly capable of stirring the blood - it was disheartening to discover how this song has been hijacked by right-wingers and ultra-nationalist patriots. The song is also used as backing music to patriotic videos about, for instance, the Russian freedom fighters of the Eastern Ukraine. And by those who, in a mirror-image of people elsewhere in the world, intend to Make Mother Russia Great Again. Ah well. As I have Johanna Smith-Rhodes say somewhere, the most dangerous national anthems are not the dreary dirges about God Saving The Queen, they're the ones that truly do rouse and stir, that can sweep up even normally rational and clear-thinking people and incite them to do bad things out of a knowledge that they are in the right, their nation is great, and their people are God's anointed. So anything they do is right, God has said so.**_

 _ **But even so... the music stirs. Hole music, as TP said.  
**_

* * *

 _ **Finally – the Witch Trials…**_

 _ **The Meadows, Lancre:**_

Bekki had to feel sorry for Ampie. She realised he _must_ be interested in her, given the fact he'd encountered so many hurdles on the way to establishing himself. It was sweet, really. In quick succession he'd run into so many things that must have had him asking "Am I _that_ interested in Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons?" and thinking twice about her. But even after meeting… Bekki reflected and counted… "Mum. Grindguts. Auntie Heidi. My grandmother. My _grandfather_. My little sister Famke. Cousin Johanna. He still wants to be with me. Even after all that."

She allowed herself to think it was all quite sweet and romantic. It gave her a little warm sensation inside. And she smiled at him. Mum had said you really got to know a guy when he was prepared to go all-out for you and take risks. She said it was why she'd decided Dad was a good bet. Dad had had the kak scared out of him quite a few times when he'd started going out with Mum. But he'd stayed there. Mum – and Godsmother Alice – had even hinted he just might conceivably have saved their lives once, or something near to **.(1)** Bekki suspected her father had that in him, deep down. Nobody got to manage the High Energy Magic Building and get to be Vice-Chancellor of Unseen University – the second most powerful wizard on the Disc, Bekki reflected (if you didn't count Dean Henry at Brazeneck), and that's my actual _dad_ – without having a core of steel at bottom. Or a bottom of steel at his core. Or something.

But, speaking of _wizards_ ….

"So _you're_ the young fella!" Mustrum Ridcully boomed.

Bekki sighed.

Her _other_ grandfather, the adoptive one, she supposed, but the one who ticked all the boxes and filled the space marked Grandfather – had flown in on Feegle-assisted magic carpet with the family party from Ankh-Morpork. _Everybody_ , it seemed, wanted to attend the Witch Trials and be there when Bekki stepped into the accepted position of fully-fledged Witch, her five years of apprenticeship and training now pretty much over.

And now he was looming over Ampie, full of not-so-quiet threat and menace. His attitude did not seem friendly or sympathetic.

"I'm just _bettin'_ that when she flew you in by broomstick, you were holdin' on a bit more closely than it called for!" Ridcully remarked.

Bekki sighed. There were advantages and nice things about having a guy you liked flying pillion with you, certainly. She hadn't complained.

Ampie smiled an uncertain smile.

"There are unspoken rules to this sort of thing, certainly, sir." he replied. "En _etiquette_ governs travelling elongside a witch es her passenger. I did esk Rebecka whet is eppropriate. Perheps, sir, you yourself may have trevelled es pillion passenger to a Witch? You will know whet is correct."

Ridcully glowered down for a second. Then he looked faraway for a second or two. Bekki smiled slightly. She had mentioned to Ampie that witches and wizards had a code of practice in these things and she'd even cited Mistress Weatherwax, _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods_ , as an exemplar, explaining she'd heard Ridcully had been her passenger a few times. Ampie had remembered, then.

"Clever young bugger, aren't you?" Ridcully said, eventually. His eyes narrowed. "Well, Rebecka's parents seem to have accepted you. But know this, boy. I'm her grandfather, as good as. Like me friend Barbarossa over here."

He nodded to Bekki's other grandfather, Mum's dad. Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes nodded back, in an unsmiling sever sort of way. Suddenly Bekki felt sorry for Ampie. _Both_ her grandfathers. At once. And looming.

"Mess with her, and I know lots of interestin' ways to make life eventful for you. _Lots_ of ways."

He nodded to Ampie. Then turned to his friend. apparently the first time they'd met had been at Mum and Dad's wedding. They'd hit it off, and things had suddenly got _lively._ They'd then gone out hunting a rogue lion together on the Veldt and bonded. Over huntin', drinkin', and dubious song in two languages. Oupa Barbarossa and Grandfather Mustrum had become fast friends.

"Barbarossa. Place like this always has a beer tent. And they brew good beer in this country. Comin'?"

Bekki saw the hint of disapproval that passed over her grandmother's face.

"Not to excess, Andreas." she said, firmly. Ouma Agnetha knew there was no point in putting her foot down. _Justnow_ , anyway.

"We'll take the boykies." Barbarossa said, genially. "Ponder. Danie. _Gaan nou ons bier!"_ They did not invite Ampie. He seemed relieved at this. _  
_

He nodded at Ampie. Meaningfully. Bekki noted that her father gave Ampie an acknowledging and somewhat sympathetic look. Uncle Danie grinned his usual "all's-well-with-the-world" grin. Ampie wasn't entirely without allies.

This time Bekki saw the slightly troubled look on Auntie Heidi's face. She went to join the family party. It would be complete when Mum and Godsmother Alice turned up with the travelling Assassin party. They were expected any time now.

"Today you become, officially, a Witch." her grandmother remarked. "And deservedly, too, _liewe heksie_!"

"Your Final Run, so to speak." Auntie Heidi agreed. "Well, you think we'd all stay away?"

Bekki felt warmed. The whole family would indeed be here. Even Ruth, who'd been excused school for the day. **(2)** Her youngest sister was agonising about what to draw first, in a day full of spectacle to delight the artist. Her travelling bag of art supplies had come with her, and she'd been deliberating as to what to do. Eventually she'd opted for a simple pad and pencils and she was engrossed in doing fast sketches of things that took her interest. There was a lot to be selective about.

"You brought Matti." Bekki said, nodding towards pram and nanny. Auntie Heidi nodded. She'd had qualms about loading a pram on board something as flimsy as a flying carpet, asking what would happen if it rolled off? Irena Politek, who had been piloting the towing Pegasus, had reassured her and advised her to lock the brakes on and have people holding it in place. Heidi had carried Matti, anyway. Just in case.

All three winced as they heard loud familiar voices carrying from the direction of the beer tent. There were a lot of people here. Over a thousand, now. The Witch Trials were a popular and much anticipated event. But Mustrum Ridcully and Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes had voices that carried. Even in a place where local Trolls had turned up; they were Lancre people too **.(3)**

"Sounds like Grandfather Mustrum's met somebody he knows." Bekki remarked. "Another Wizard, by the sound of it."

"Your grandfather had better behave himself." Ouma Agnetha said, sternly. " _Both_ of them, not just the one I'm married to."

Bekki reassured her. The Witch Trials were specifically a Witch thing. Wizards weren't barred. It was reluctantly acknowledged that there _should_ be a Wizard or two present. Just so they could watch and take note. Bekki suspected it allowed for informal discussions between, perhaps, Arch-Chancellor Ridcully and Mistress Tiffany Aching concerning matters of mutual concern. Dad and Mrs Ogg were likely to be involved too. Informal diplomacy. But any Wizard with half a brain would realise this was a Witch day, and tread carefully, aware of being a guest, and seek not to give offence or be a nuisance. If you added in Eddie de Kockomaainje, Olga's husband, there'd be no more than three or four. Among quite a few hundred Witches. So they'd keep a low profile. She reflected that Dean Henry had attended _once,_ and was now blacklisted forever as a guest, by universal decree of witchdom.

"Edouard is here?" her grandmother said. She seemed interested.

" _Ja, ouma."_ Bekki replied. "Olga will be here, somewhere. I haven't seen her yet. She must be here with the Pegasus Service, for the Review. And perhaps to compete as a Witch. I remember she said she had something planned. She intended to bring her husband and her children."

Ouma Agnetha brightened.

"Such lovely children." she said, approvingly. "And well brought up, too. I must see them."

* * *

Elsewhere on the field, the local pub, the Goat and Compasses, had set up its annual out-station in a very large marquee. Even at nine-thirty in the morning it was doing steady business. The Smith-Rhodes family party, or at least the senior men, had gravitated towards, it in the manner of iron filings to a magnet. Professor Sir Ponder Stibbons nursed his beer shandy. He wasn't used to drinking this early in the day, even though he'd been a Wizard since before his adult life had started, and should be used to it by now **.(4)** He _could_ , however, smell something tantalisingly familiar and more in keeping with his particular sort of Wizardry. Various food stalls were setting up. Cooking odours were spreading. There was, for instance, a travelling Brindisian enterprise that toured venues like this and had a mobile pizza oven. Ponder also suspected an Ephebian food wagon had set up; he could smell doner kebab being set up on its rotating spit, probably a large leg of monopedos rabbit **.(5)** He sighed, resignedly, and watched the people around him.

Even in Lancre, it seemed, Danie Smith-Rhodes was being recognised as a famous hand-and-foot-the-ball player. He was cheerfully signing autographs, posing for iconographs, talking the Game with local players, and diplomatically fending off offers of drinks, pointing out that his wife - and mother – were nearby and might have things to say if he got cheerfully drunk by mid-day. Besides, the day wasn't about him, his niece was competing at the Witch Trials, and he wanted to be halfway sober for that. Her big day.

"Aye, Miss Rebecka." a fan said, soberly. "Been our assistant Witch in Pork Scratching for nigh on a year now. Bit different. Must be with half of her being from the same forn parts you're from. We're hoping she stays. Bloody good with livestock, Miss Rebecka."

Ponder envied Danie his easy ability to get on with people and to be at home wherever he was. He also appreciated hearing people speaking well of Bekki. That sort of thing made him proud.

And then…

"EARWIG!" Ridcully bellowed. "You old BASTARD!"

Ponder saw the short fat elderly Wizard who'd just walked in visibly wince. He rocked as Ridcully clapped him on the back.

The long thin woman dressed in fussy black looked as if something disgustingly offensive was looming in front of her.

"Actually, it's pronounced Ee-ah-weeg-AH…" she began.

Ridcully beamed genially at her.

"Brought the missus, I see, Earwig!" he bellowed. "Nice to see you, Lettuce! Keepin' him healthy, I trust? Now get a BEER down you, old man, yer hand's empty!"

Ponder shook his head. He knew who the Earwigs were. A Wizard, nominally retired, who'd married a witch with big ideas. Bekki had mentioned her, in the context of "There has to be _one_ , Dad. Somebody into all the frilly bits and the showy gimmicks and the flounces. And to be fair, some of it actually _works_."

They'd retired to Lancre, where Doctor Earwig had been getting on with some quiet non-practicing research, the theoretical stuff, and supported his wife as best he could whilst she tried to shake up the stuffy old-fashioned world of Witchcraft. Which didn't _want_ to be shaken up or reformed or restructured. It didn't stop her trying, Bekki had said. "We just let her get on with it, and the older witches send her the odd pupil. Miss Tick says it's usually the sort of girl who can do least damage if she gets sent to Mrs Earwig to get her out of the way, and she can usually be retrained later, on the quiet."

Ridcully led Doctor Earwig to the makeshift bar, listening with half an ear to Mrs Earwig loudly insisting that as her husband was going to be an impartial member of the judging panel later, she _completely disapproved_ of his being given strong drink so early in the day.

"And a gin and tonic or perhaps a sherry for you, Lettuce, m'dear?" Ridcully asked, genially. "Get it down you, old man! Remember those nights in the Drum with the chaps? Great days! Oh, and this is m'friend from Howondaland, Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes. Got two gels who are Assassins, a son who's a damn fine foot-the-ball-player, that's young Danie over here, fellow after me own heart, and more to the point, his grand-daughter's a young Witch, Lettuce probably knows her? Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, based over Pork Scratching way in the high hills…"

Lettice Earwig sniffed. There was a tinkling of occult jewellery.

"Oh, yes. The Howondalandian girl. Good with _pigs_ , I hear."

Barbarossa looked at her.

" _Vorbei_ , a fine skill to have!" he proclaimed. "Good with other animals, too. A good girl with stock. Still, she is a Boer, from a long line of Boers. Be more surprising if she was not. End a grend-daughter I em _proud_ of!"

Ponder decided to step in. He suspected Lettice Earwig might have a few unwise prejudices about _colonials_.

"Doctor Earwig." he said, shaking the older Wizard by the hand. "I'm pleased to have met you at long last. I owe you a lot of thanks, and I'm sure when you meet Doctor de Kockamaainje when he arrives, he'll tell you so too. You – and your wife – made it possible. For Wizards to marry. You paved the way. You got younger wizards thinking differently and realising this is possible. If not for you, I might perhaps still be single. Thank you."

As he hoped, this diverted the flow. He made a mental note to prime Johanna and her family to be _understanding._ He'd got the undercurrent of _bloody colonials_ from Mrs Lettice Earwig, and feared if he _didn't_ step in, it might be like the thing between Bekki and her History teacher at school, or at worst a footnote to the Boor War.

Doctor Earwig looked a little embarrassed at the praise. He looked at his wife, then at Ponder. Ponder wondered if Earwig was thinking, deep down inside, he might have been better advised to remain single.

"Thank you, Professor Stibbons." the old wizard said, after a reflective silence. "If it helps, when the Lore was rewritten to allow Wizards to marry and remain in practice - I believe to accomodate you and your good lady wife - it enabled me to come out of retirement and to practice again, for which I have to thank _you_. I understand you are Vice-Chancellor these days?"

Ponder and Ridcully were both dressed in good street clothes, with only the pointy hat and the Unseen alumni octagram badge advertising their status. Earwig, uncomfortably on what promised to be a hot day, was in the gaudiest possible wizarding robes, with staff. He was already beginning to sweat. Ponder suspected Mrs Earwig had _insisted_ on full regalia.

"Sir Ponder Stibbons." Mrs Earwig said. _She looks uncertain, possibly as to whether to curtsey, or something._ "His Lordship made you a Knight?"

"Yes, at Hogswatch." Ponder replied. "But please. Just Ponder. And when you meet my wife later - she tends not to answer to Lady Stibbons. Very much."

Barbarossa – and Danie – roared with laughter. They knew too about Johanna's reactions to being a Ladyship. Danie teased her about it. Little Brother Privileges applied.

And outside, the King and Queen of Lancre were due to arrive soon, to formally open the proceedings.

* * *

Meanwhile a sort of Diplomacy was happening in one section of the growing crowd. The first of the Zulu families temporarily resident in Lancre were arriving to enjoy the day. Bekki had winced inside, remembering recent events, but the two family parties had assessed each other cautiously. Then Auntie Heidi had made the first step. She and one of the Zulu women were now comparing recent babies. Ouma Agnetha had joined in. Some things are universal even without much of a common language. Bekki did some translating, but not much was needed: childcare was happening. And Bekki looked closely. Her cousin Mattewis, only a few weeks old, wasn't wearing conventional baby clothes. He was in a scaled -down Bokkies jersey, in green with gold trim. Right down to the springboek-and-protea emblem on the front.

"I'm just _betting_ he's got the number ten on his back?" Bekki asked her aunt. Auntie Heidi made a shrug.

"What can you do? Danie got it for him. Starting him young, evidently. And his father plays in the number ten shirt. Fly-half." **(6)**

Bekki had to admit her cousin looked cute and adorable in the shirt. He spoilt it a little by audibly belching and farting.

"Definitely his father's son." Bekki said.

"No question." Auntie Heidi agreed. She frowned. "None of the Zulu _men_ are here yet?"

Bekki sighed. "Long story. Listen…"

* * *

And the Assassins' School party arrived, on foot. Bekki and Ampie went to join them.

"So. No Zulu men here?" Johanna Smith-Rhodes asked. Alice Band was looking over to where members of the various Feegle clans had gathered, in a place of their own – nobody else wanted to contest it – with the intention of loudly cheering on their own clan Hags. A group of Keldas had gathered, somewhere in the middle, to talk Kelda business, and just get together. The life of a Kelda offered few opportunities to convene like this, among friends, and often with sisters or even mothers. A respectfully guarded space had opened around them. The gentle slope offering a good view of the performance arena was known as Feegle Hill. Godsmother Alice just looked watchfully wary, Bekki realised. As well she might. Bekki noticed one of the Feegle was, inconguously, larger and wiider than the rest and was bright green. Grindguts was among his adopted clan, then: the demon stood out from a long way away.

"They're coming later, mum." Bekki said. "With the King. Do you want me to go and _very carefully_ explain to Famke? If at all possible, to disarm her first?"

Johanna shook her head. They regarded the Assassin pupils; the girls in the party had clustered, squealing with excitement, to say hello to Mrs Smith-Rhodes and to get to see her baby son for the first time. Auntie Heidi was allowing them access. Favoured girls even got to hold him for a while; Famke was, for the moment, being normally twelve-year-old female and enjoying the occasion.

"We've had words." she said. "With Famke and the others. Prince Yazu – _ex_ -prince Yazu – is explaining it to his people too. _Ag_ , the man is Ruth N'Kweze's brother, so he is not _entirely_ stupid. It should be a fine day."

Johanna looked at her daughter with an expression of pride.

"You'll do well. It's good to be here."

And then there were the strangled notes of what optimistically aspired to be a fanfare. Bekki and Johanna looked round to where Shawn Ogg, Herald to the King of Lancre, was wrestling notes out of one of those long trumpets with a banner dangling from the handle. Bekki also saw Ampie wince, and for a moment his face developed the sort of little twitch that Mum said the Guild School's music master got a lot.

Then Ampie walked over to Shawn, tapped him on the shoulder, and made a request. Shawn Ogg, nonplussed, handed him the instrument.

A second or two later, Lancre heard an expertly played royal fanfare.

"Ag, he's a horn player." Johanna remarked. "You cannot blame him for wanting to hear it done _right_."

Bekki then glanced over to where Auntie Heidi, who had been primed, rested a hand on Famke's shoulder and restrained her. Her aunt then said something fairly emphatic into Famke's ear. The other White Howondalandian pupils looked on, visibly nervous, but making no move towards weapons. They'd been told too.

And the expectant crowd, a couple of thousand big by now, gasped as a double-file of Zulu warriors double-marched into the roped-off arena, their shields and assegais raised. They fanned out to make a processional route.

Then King Verence and Queen Magrat of Lancre walked into the arena space.

"The Ceremonial Guard Impi of the King and Queen of Lancre." Bekki said. She recognised Dabu among the Guard, whose youngest member appeared to be only around eleven. Dabu, she noted, was holding a brand-new shield, with an intact hide. Bekki glanced over: she noted the look that passed between Dabu and the Assassin schoolgirl, Connie Muthelezi.

Her mother had noted it too.

"She'll have to wait a few years." Johanna said, drily. "She might be able to marry at home at thirteen, but we're not geared up for pupils who can put a _"mrs"_ in front of their name. Poses problems."

"Assuming they still want to in a few years." Bekki replied.

"That is a consideration, _ja_." her mother agreed.

The King and Queen moved to the dais prepared for them. Being Lancre, it was made up of old produce boxes stacked together and hastily nailed into a supporting framework, then covered in drapes to make it look like the real deal. Bekki had seen it being built.

Verence and Magrat sat, very carefully. The King waited for his new royal guardsmen to reassemble to one side of the temporary throne, then read a prepared speech with great precise dignity. The effect, Bekki thought, was spoilt by the fact only a small section of the crowd could hear it, and there was a low susurration made up of people obligingly repeating the King's speech and passing it on down the line. By the time it got to Bekki, it had become something like _"We all come to the Swatch bridles"._ She gathered the King had welcomed everyone and opened the show, anyway.

And then the Trials truly began.

Shawn Ogg had somehow, and belatedly, got hold of one of the new amplifying megaphones with an imp in it, so as to relay his words, and the first of the witches came forward to do her piece…

"When are you on?" Mum asked.

"Early afternoon." Bekki replied. "Mrs Earwig has got the running order."

She nodded towards the judging podium. Judges had been Mrs Earwig's idea. Other Witches had vetoed the idea of their holding up numbered scorecards, which went against the spirit of the thing. In any case, Verence and Magrat were also Judging. Both would take the democratic verdict of Witchcraft into consideration. Especially Magrat, who was very likely to consult people like Nanny Ogg and Tiffany Aching first.

There was a round of dutiful applause as Miss Perennia Harpenden finished her routine, which had involved trained ravens. Perrenia, a Witch whose black was now unavoidably streaked with off-white, was rounding up her performing birds with the promise of fresh eyeballs.

Then there was a stirring in the audience as a large horse-box was driven on and quite a few large ostlers wrestled an even larger stallion into the arena. Shawn Ogg was seen to consult a written note.

 _Can't make this bit out… hold on a minute. Got it now! Your Majesties, and visiting Sirs and Ladies, Mr Arch-Chancellor Ridcully, Sir Ponder Stibbons and Lady Johanna Stibbons_ **(7),** _Ladies and Gentlemen, trolls, dwarves, goblins, and Feegle… you are now about to witness Miss Sophie Rawlinson demonstrating the practical uses of the Horseman's Word! With the assistance of Mr Thaddeus Hobley's latest stallion, Black Death On Legs, out of Evil Beldame, by Demon Lord…_

"This should be interesting." Barbarossa observed, as Sophie walked out into the arena. "That fellow looks like a mean horse indeed."

"Ja. But I've met Sophie. She would not be doing this if she were not confident." Johanna replied.

Sophie motioned for the ostlers to let go of the restraining reins. They gratefully released the horse and ran for cover. Black Death On Legs still tried to bite, on general principles. Then the huge snorting stallion saw Sophie and its ears flattened. It neighed, reared and lunged.

Sophie took a step forward and folded her arms. She looked up at the horse, without fear. It reared up in front of her and tried to club its forelegs down. Sophie looked up, dispassionately.

The horse never made contact. Its hooves seemed to bounce off some feet in front of Sophie and it skidded off to one side. Then lowered its head and charged. Again it ran into the invisible wall.

Mustrum Ridcully laughed.

"Gel's called up protection!" he remarked. "Damn good, too! There are wizards she'd put to shame with that!"

Sophie allowed the horse to vary its attacks and directions, turning to face it every time, allowing it to burn off its energy on whatever shield she was using. Then she walked unconcernedly up to the panting, blown, stallion, reached up and took the bridle in her hand, pulling its head down to her. She lifted an ear and whispered to it. The stallion blinked. Sophie nodded and repeated whatever she had said.

Suddenly a docile stallion allowed her to mount and ride it bareback. It tried a token buck, but Sophie leant forward and whispered into its ear again. There was no more resistance after that. She took her new mount for a couple of turns around the ring, calling a cheerful hello to Bekki as she passed. On the next turn she paused at Bekki's party.

"Just thought of something." she said. "Ruthie? Do you fancy a ride? If your mum says you can, of course."

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons looked up. Like her sisters she'd been taught to ride, although she'd never been on anything bigger than a pony yet. Sophie knew this.

Johanna made a quick decision.

"Ok." she said. "I trust you, Sophie."

Ruth was quickly lifted up to sit in front of Sophie, by her grandfather. And then the two did another turn round the field. Where Sophie got off and had another quick word with the horse, indicating where Johanna was standing. The stallion appeared to get the point.

"All yours, Ruth." Sophie said.

And the small girl on the back of the big horse looked down, and changed in some indefinite way. Sitting up straighter and with a lot more confidence and assurance.

"I'm Anri-Yolande." she said. "Ruth's still here, but she's a passenger."

Then Anri-Yolande took the reins, and cantered the now docile stallion round the field for a lap… and there was thunderous applause. Anri-Yolande Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, without fear or timidity, hopped off the back of the horse easily, took the reins, then acknowledged the crowd. With, Sophie noted, the Witch's bow. She passed control back to Sophie.

"I should let Ruth take charge again." Anri-Yolande said. "That was fun, by the way. Thank you."

Sophie took a deep breath and looked round. Yes. Agnes Nitt was here. She had an idea of what was going on from talking to Bekki. Sophie breathed out, took the acknowledgement of the crowd, and nodded for Agnes to come forward. She'd know what to do…

 _Miss Sophie Rawlinson! Who knows the secret of the Horseman's Word! (pause) Oh, and the little girl what came forward to help, wasn't she good!_

More witches came forward to perform. Sophie attached herself to the Smith-Rhodes family party and accepted congratulations.

"Believe me, it wasn't so difficult." Sophie said, modestly, but indistinctly. Johanna's family servants had accompanied the party. It had been a big magic carpet. Dorothea had packed several large food and drink hampers, and she and the other servants were appreciating what amounted to a working holiday. _Everybody_ wanted to be there on Miss Rebecka's big day. Food and drink was circulating.

"Maar, you were impressive!" Barbarossa said. "Hed to edmit to a bit of worry when you put Ruth on thet creature's beck. But she did well too. A girl to be proud of!"

He looked at Sophie's tunic and saw the gold and silver bees that were pinned there. He recognised what they were.

"Care to tell me ebout those, meisie?" he asked. "You do not see _those_ very often on people with a white skin."

Sophie explained. She added, modestly, that when you've faced down a _naga_ , an unbroken stallion isn't so bad. And the Horseman's Word helps, too.

"So you saw bettle. Elongside the Zulus." Barbarossa said. Bekki and Sophie recognised the undercurrent in his words. White people fighting on the side of the heriditary enemy...

"I fought for _Ruth_." Sophie said, making the distinction clear. "The Princess. She has that effect on people. You _want_ to fight for her. Afterwards, her father rewarded me. so did Ruth. I might go out there and work for her for a while. See practice in Howondaland."

Barbarossa shook his head. He grinned. Bekki reflected that her grandfather quite liked Ruth N'Kweze.

"Wellnow. I'm only just over the river. You'd be welcome." he said. "Whetever BOSS thinks concerning your crossing the border. I would not tell. _Vorbei,_ there's always a difficult horse or two."

Sophie thanked him and reached for another sandwich. Bekki understood. Magic made you hungry. And Dorothea's home cooking was preferable to some of the sub-Dibbler offerings being peddled here.

There was a ceremonial fly-past from the Pegasus Service. _Every_ rider in the Service, given leave for the day by Vetinari, was here. And every Pegasus, including two riderless mounts who were following along behind their dam. Bekki and Sophie shivered with excitement. It wouldn't be long now. A month or two. They watched King Verence taking the salute from the dais, and went to take their own places, at the end of the line, the two novice pilots yet to be sworn into the Service. The only two who were in plain Witch clothes and standard pointy hats; all the other riders were in their rarely-worn full dress uniforms. With, of course, the pointy hat worn by the Service, the swept-back aerodynamic design.

Captain Olga Romanoff walked with the King and Queen as they made their Review. Verence took care to have a few words with each pilot. He was the Colonel-In-Chief, after all. Finally he came to Boetjie and Rosie, the two colts, and their riders.

"Our newest pilots, Your Majesty. Yet to be trained. And the two colts."

Bekki stood at Boetjie's head-stall. She exchanged a few words with the King and Queen. Bekki was aware of iconographs being taken and her family looking on with quiet pride. Then they moved on to Sophie. Afterwards, Bekki could recall nothing more than the honest and slightly worried face of the King, and Magrat's air of "I'm not so much a Queen, more of a working Witch in a crown."

And then it was over, the Pegasi flying back to the Air Station after their demonstration, Rosie and Boetjie, for now, with them.

And Apricity Brabble stepped up to perform…

The shy, quiet young Witch took off her boots and socks, with great deliberation. She lifted each foot in turn to demonstrate that it was bare. Then she stood, composed herself and stepped forward, beginning a circuit of the ground, walking widdershins. Nothing happened for a while and the crowd began to murmur. But in her path, where she had walked, budding plants sprouted from the ground. They grew quickly. Mustrum Ridcully whistled appreciation, as the growing plants matured into wheat and barley. He nudged Ponder Stibbons and Edouard de Kockamaainje. They'd all seen the octarine glow forming round the girl as she walked.

"That's _ped fecundis_!" Ridcully remarked. "The gel's got _ped fecundis_! Ye Gods, Stibbons, that's an advanced eighth-level spell!"

Elsewhere there was a shout of _"Don't waste that! Harvest it!",_ but Apricity walked on, oblivious to the crowd, eventually coming back to her starting point and recovering her boots and socks. She shook herself out of the trance, then donned her footwear again. Inevitably, she found herself with Bekki and Sophie, being offered food from the family hampers and eating prodigally.

"Don't suppose you cen do fruit, could you?" Danie Smith-Rhodes asked her. "I quite fency a mango or a guava or something elong those lines."

Apricity shook her head.

"For some reason it works best with cereal crops for me." she said. "Wheat and rye and oats and barley. Spelt, too, for some reason."

They watched the hiatus in proceedings whilst scythes and reaping tools were employed for the sudden bounty.

"Better watch that." Sophie said. "Round here, they'll all want you walking barefoot in the fields as often as possible."

Apricity shook her head again.

"Doesn't work for all that long." she said. "I was lucky to make it once round the field. It wears off." She paused, and asked "Got any more of those sweet sticky cakes?"

" _Heunigkoeken_? **(8)** Help yourself. Got _melktert_ , too." Bekki said. Apricity was eating enough for three. It figured: she'd just called nearly half an acre of corn into being where previously there hadn't even been seeds. The energy for that had to come from somewhere, just as it had for Sophie's magical shield that had bamboozled a moody stallion. As it had funnelled through Apricity, Bekki reckoned she deserved a lot of sweet sugary cake as a fast way of replenishing the energy. And _melktert_ **,(9)** one of the great staples of Rimwards Howondaland. Bekki explained it was mainly condensed milk with added sugar, and - normally - quite fattening.

And the day progressed. She noted that with witches of many nationalities, now, it was taking on an air of international competition. She sighed. She'd be seen as representing Rimwards Howondaland, inevitably. There were an inevitable writer-of-news or two here, with iconographs. And news articles travelled a long way these days. They got syndicated. **(10)**

A young Quirmian witch with an insouciant air demonstrated how to turn water into wine. Bekki explained to Uncle Danie, who was speculating on inviting her to a Bokkies' after-game social to see if she could do it with beer, that the effect didn't last long. It would persist for _just long enough_ , and then inertia would set in and it would revert to water. Or else, for anyone who drank it, as several willing volunteers did to testify to the spell, it would, in the normal course of events, become something akin to fairy gold. Well, a golden-coloured liquid, anyway.

There was the Überwaldean witch who did something involving sausages, _der Schweinstrick._ A Brinsdisian witch made a small tree sprout an unexpected spaghetti crop. Bekki sighed. They were giving the crowd what they wanted to see and being funny foreigners.

Then Olga, Irena and several of the younger Far Überwaldean witches did a group performance. It was spectacular. Olga and Irena had changed out of their dress uniforms and put on what Bekki gathered was folk dress. **(11)** As had the younger witches. A group of Dwarves who Bekki recognised were ground-crew at the air station joined them, as did Miss Agnes Nitt. The Dwarfs were also wearing Far Überwaldean costume, including tall conical fur hats which still managed to have horns in them. Balalaikas of various sorts were being brandished.

"Ah. Folk dancing is about to be perpetrated." Alice Band remarked.

The six witches formed two lines, facing each other. Agnes and the short wide Dwarf looked at each other to cue each other in. A balalaika stuck up a chord. Then the singing began. And the dancing, first slow and sedate as three pairs of witches performed a slow expressive circling movement. Bekki observed that Olga and Irena were dressed in loose trousers and high riding boots with loose smock tunics, as if they were dancing the mens' parts: the other Witches were in long loose skirts and more conventionally female dress. Apart from one, a woman in her twenties who Bekki did nort recognise and could not put a name to, who was also in trousers and boots, but wearing a long loosely belted coat. _That figures. Three to dance the women's parts, three to dance the mens'_. Agnes and the Dwarf performed the song in duet.

 _Калинка, калинка, калинка моя!  
В саду ягода малинка, малинка моя!_

Bekki knew the song. She explained to her family and friends it was the one where the singer is apparently praising the beauty and the taste of the raspberries growing in his garden, then proceeds to eat his fill of them, and falls asleep, satisfied and happy, underneath a green shady pine tree standing erect and proud in the summer sun.

"Ah." Godsmother Alice said, grasping the point. " _That_ sort of traditional song."

"Does Nanny Ogg know about this one?" Sophie asked.

Bekki nodded. Nanny Ogg _collected_ songs like this. They weren't just a Lancre thing. Even if the original composer had honestly only had the beauty, perfection and tart sweetness of summer raspberries in mind, Nanny Ogg would find another meaning. And put it there, even if it had never been intended. And after getting the Ogg translation, nobody would ever, again, think it was _just_ about raspberries.

The dancing got faster and faster as the song repeated, and, indeed, involved a lot of the squatting-down-on-an-imaginary-stool and kicking your legs out. Skirts flew and legs were briefly exposed. It was spectacular, it was eye-catching, but as yet involved no magic. Apart from the fact Agnes Nitt could be a small choir on her own. It was her witch skill, applied to music.

As applause died down, Olga Romanoff called to the crowd that this was only warming up. She then called for the swords to be brought out. Two Dwarfs appeared with an arm-load of sabres which were distributed to the dancers. Six seemingly spare ones were laid, carefully, in the grass, just so. Then Olga announced that their little company would now perform the Sabre Dance of the Steppe Cossacks. These are Cossack sabres, by the way. Cossacks do not do blunt swords. Very sharp, and very pointy. She illustrated the point by chopping through a stick one of the younger witches held up.

And then the sword dance, beginning slow and speeding up, began. As the six Witches danced and spun and the swords flashed and clashed, six more swords rose from the grass on their own. And their movements perfectly mirrored the movement of the swords being used by the dancers. Just in flashing brief glimpses, Bekki was sure there were twelve dancers out there, not just six… she appreciated the sheer focus and concentration going on. Just using a sharp sword in a dance would be difficult enough. Each of the witches, she realised, was also controlling a second blade, effectively either being in two places at once, or else moving very quickly between them. And then the sixth witch, the one in the loosely belted long black coat, topped it all by using _two_ swords, one in each hand. They flashed and spun and wove intricate patterns in the air. and over to her left, two swords flashed and spun in unison, despite seemingly having nobody to wield them. this provoked tremendous applause. The Assassin party looked on appreciatively. Bekki reckoned they _liked_ this sort of thing. Professional interest. She wondered if Auntie Emmie knew about this. Her maiden name translated out of Quirmian as _Madame Two-Swords_ , after all. It was Auntie Emmie's trademark. And here was another woman using two swords as if she'd been born to it...

There was another song, lead vocals alterating between the principal Dwarf and Agnes, with the Dwarf musicians provising a chorus. Agnes would say later "Thank you, but I only learn the _words_ and how to voice them properly. It's like opera: you can either perform it or you learn what the words mean. Take it from me, you don't do both." The song was more of a chant, really. But it stirred. bekki could pick up a few words and the odd phrases, but not much more. it was the overall effect that counted. Mesmerising. Iit called to the blood.

 _Русь молодая, сердцу дорого,_

 _Да не пристало нам сидеть по хатам_

 _Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!_

 _Ros molodai... something about youth and vigour and strength and vitality... and calling for the swords..._

She heard Eddie de Kockamaaijne explaining to their twin children "This is why I don't argue with Mummy." Vasily and Valentina looked seriously up at him, then nodded. Valentina Romanoff de Kockamaainje watched the dancers with excited concentration. Eddie saw his daughter's hands following the movements of the sword-play and winced slightly. Bekki smiled. She had an intuition what Valla was going to want for her next birthday. A couple of matching _shakshas_ , probably. _Ah well. Mum's got a couple of sets up on the wall... and Rivka ben-Divorah uses that sword for preference. She'll have spares too..._

And by the look on his face, Jason Ogg the blacksmith was saying to Bert Weaver the Thatcher that if the Lancre Morrismen ever played an international against Far Überwald, it was going to be one bloody hard match… I mean, Bert, that's a ladies' team. Imagine the _men_?

After that, the witch from Fourecks had a hard act to follow. But everybody agreed it was right impressive, the way she got them two sheep to shear _each other_. Agriculturally based magic always got a round of applause in Lancre.

Petulia Gristle did the Pig Trick. That one never grew old. Even Agnetha Smith-Rhodes nodded and said "Impressive."

Then Nanny Ogg went on to do her party piece, the Straw Man. Everybody agreed that where she chose to put that last ear of corn was allus good for a laugh. Especially if she chose that Acerian stuff called _maize_ for this bit. You know, the full corncob. Bekki noted her grandmother looked sternly disapproving. Until she cracked a smile. And shook with supressed laughter.

And then Bekki realised the time for her own performance was coming up. She thought she'd be going on straight after Nanny Ogg. _Oh, hell. How do I follow that?_

And then Nanny came over to them all, in her usual unhurried bouncy way with a great big grin on her face.

"How do, Bekki, love!" she said. "Sorry I ain't made time to say hello yet, but there's a lot to do here. Lots of people to see. People to speak to. You know how it is. _Witch business_."

Bekki assured her. Then she realised Ampie's personal trials weren't over yet, and braced herself.

"Why don't I introduce you to my family…" she said, taking a big deep breath. "You've met Mum, of course. And Uncle Danie. This is my sister Famke…"

"Ah." Nanny said, giving Famke a long appraising look. "The _lively_ one, as I hears."

Famke seemed uncomfortable under a surface look of wide-eyed innocence. Nanny Ogg's appraising looks - well, they _appraised._ Finally she nodded, grinned, and turned away. Then Nanny beamed with delight and gave Danie a big hug.

"Learnt any new songs since we met last?" she whooped. "And, ooh, you got yourself a little babby boy, let me see!"

Nanny was diverted for a while, cooing over Matti and discussing babies with Auntie Heidi and Ouma Agnetha.

"By the way, Bekki, love, we decided it ain't fair for anyone to go on straight after me." she said. "Got a bit of an entertainment coming up. Just to break it up. So you've got ten minutes or so. _Ah, who's a big beautiful baby boy, then?_ Did you get two other witches sorted out yet for the wishes, Bekki? _I can see you put yours on this ickle love…_ to know himself and to know where he came from. Important, that is. Well thought of, Bekki. Ten pounds, love? First baby? Well, at least the next one should pop out easier. You know, your _next_ son. Now his big brother's paved the way, so to speak. Take it from me. I've had fifteen. My Jason weighed eleven. They was all easy, after him."

Then she saw Ampie. Her face screwed up in a classic Nanny Ogg rictus.

"Ooh, Bekki, you got yourself a _follower_ , then?"

The next few minutes were full of the usual sort of single entendres and big friendly nudges into Ampie's ribs. _He looks siege-engine shocked, Bekki thought._

"Anyway, you look after our girl." Nanny said, in a friendly way. "As I tell the youngsters, always make time for a good man. And if you can't find one of _those_ , the occasional not so good man does, in a pinch."

And then the Entertainment happened. It involved the newcomers to Lancre, the Zulus. Johanna hastily brought together the White Howondalandian members of the party and said "Watch. Observe. And Famke. Do _not_ rush out there waving a sword. This is peaceable."

Connie Muthelezi interpreted the song and ritual dance. Zulu song, even from less than twenty people, echoed round the arena.

"It is a song of praise to the King, and to his Great Wife Magrat." Connie said. "The men sing of a great king who would undoubtably be a victor in war, should he choose to fight any. And, oh, they've done their research, or been told. He is the Great King who threw out the _impondolus_ who stole his kingdom, and defeated their warriors. Some fight with vampires? He is the Great King who when the _bisembe_ and the _emere_ came from their cold poisoned winter land – and look at the way they're touching the metal of their assegais there – led the war and slew the creatures of night and darkness and in their opinion is a King worth serving. Errr. The women are singing of Queen Magrat as the Great Cow, who keeps the land fertile and the people prosperous. A King and a Great Wife… err, that's as near as our language gets to a wife of a King counting as a Queen – who between them rule with wisdom and strength and who bring prosperity. They're expressing thanks and gratitude for their being granted a new life here. Err."

"Magrat's a great big cow, then." Nanny Ogg said, her face carefully straight. "I think I get what they mean."

"Mother of many calves and the fountain of much milk. In a _symbolic_ sense." Connie said.

Nanny grinned a great big Nanny Ogg grin.

"Just wait till I tell Magrat." she said. "I'm just bettin' nobody's translating for her!"

She paused for a moment.

"'Sides, as I recollect it. Magrat led most of the fighting." she observed. "And Verence negotiated all the stuff with places like Ankh-Morpork that's bringin' the money in. So by rights, _she's_ the victor in battle and _he's_ the one what does the nurturin' and the makin' prosperous." Nanny Ogg observed. "Which makes our Verence into a great big cow."

"Doesn't matter, _mevrou_ Ogg." Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes observed. "If one does the fighting, end one does the making prosperous. End thet both do their work well."

Nanny grinned at him.

"I sees you is a thoughtful man, mister Smith-Rhodes." she said. "Something that shows in your family."

Barbarossa appeared to blush slightly. Agnetha smiled, in a satisfied sort of way.

" _Ja."_ she said. "He ettempts to hide it, but now end again it comes out."

A new song started. The ex-prince Yazu and his brothers approached the Smith-Rhodes family group, but cautiously, and began a new chant. Johanna raised an eyebrow.

"Err. This one is in _your_ honour, Doctor Smith-Rhodes." Connie said, cautiously. "Praise to a worthy enemy. One deadly in her anger and unequalled in her skills. I wonder if they intend it as a sort of peace offering?"

Johanna tried not to look pleased. She folded her arms and regarded the Zulus.

"You too are a Great Cow, ma'am." Connie said. There was a spluttering of amusement, largely from the Assassin students.

Johanna looked sharply at Connie, who was maintaining a look of poker-faced innocence. **(12)** She noted members of her extended family were also adopting distinct and careful poker took a deep breath.

"Continue, Miss Muthelezi."

"And you are also full of that which characterises the Bull, ma'am." Connie said. Johanna's eyes narrowed slightly. "Err.. the strength, agression and speed of the Bull, that is."

There was beating of spears on shields. Heidi and Bekki each kept a hand on one of Famke's shoulders. Just in case.

Eventually. Johanna drew her sword and saluted the Zulus. They returned the salute, courteously, and the sword was re-sheathed.

* * *

And then it was Bekki's turn to perform. She took a deep breath and stepped forwards over a patch of sudden corn-stubble, then walked to the centre of the arena, composing herself, aware of the best part of two thousand people watching. A couple of Pegasi were overhead, coming in to land. They seemed to have passengers.

Then she put herself in the other place and two thousand people, including her family, faded out of her mind.

* * *

"Hi, ouma. Oupa. Tannie Johanna."

"Just made it then. Bekki's doing her act."

Young Johanna and Emma Roydes took their place with the family. Both were in their best military uniform.

" _Ja_ , just made it in. Mr Vinhuis had to brief us. Olga saw to it we got a lift. King and Queen to see. Embassy business. Diplomatic note to deliver to the King."

Johanna accepted this. Then they turned to watch Bekki.

Bekki drew her own sword. She made a point of saluting the King and Queen with it. Then she very carefully adopted the Position, or one of them. She raised her right hand up with the Sword pointing at the heavens. Her left arm pointed down, fingertip pointing into the ground. It was one of the classic Wizard stances: something about drawing the power of Air and the power of earth into the Fire and Water, the mind and heart of the Adept, the point of balance that concentrates and focuses the Force. Bekki suspected it was just so much Wizard boffo, but it was a way of pointing out to the Witches that because she was the daughter of a Wizard, her magic wasn't _just_ Witch stuff.

And it made a good opening.

She focused again. This had to be just _right…_

And the first fireball coalesced right on the tip of her sword…

* * *

"Mr Vinhuis wasn't making it up, then. Lots of Zulus here." Emma Roydes said, thoughtfully.

She and Johanna were both in the rarely-worn full dress uniform of the Selous Scouts. There hadn't really been one for a long time. And certainly not one for women officers. Then the need for it had come up. Crowbar Dreyer had said something like "Can you two put something together? Throw a few ideas about. I'll sign it off and get a budget for the tailors."

Emma and Johanna had then gone to consult Mariella Smith-Rhodes, who in some circumstances would have to wear the uniform too. Between the three of them they'd made a plan. And a design or two. The result had been the full dress uniform they were wearing, basically an upgrade on the standard everyday clothing but "tarted up a bit." It was dark jungle green, with golden-yellow cuffs, collar and trim, and a golden stripe down the trousers. Mariella had suggested basing it on the Springboeks' foot-and-hand-the-ball jerseys.

And now two obvious combat officers of the Rimwards Howondalandian Army were thoughtfully contemplating a group of Zulu warriors. In Lancre.

"Consider a ceasefire applies. Here." Johanna Smith-Rhodes, the older Johanna, said. "Yazu over there sees the need for it."

The younger Johanna smiled in the direction of ex-prince Yazu, and took off her peaked cap. Pink hair shimmered in the sunlight. She put her cap back on, the point having been made.

* * *

And in the arena, Rebecka Smith-Rhodes was now juggling fireballs into the air, flipping each one up as it formed. The ones she had already created were forming a squadron, vivid balls of variably coloured light even in a summer sky.

" _One_ 's a devil to control." Mustrum Ridcully remarked. "But the gel must have a dozen up there. Oh, I say!"

Bekki concentrated furiously as the fireballs formed in the sky. And started to fly patterns in the air, leaving trails and after-images in the eyes of those watching. Nine, in red, white, and blue, leaving coloured trails in the air behind them, flew aerobatic stunts as the crowd ooh'ed and ahh'ed. A little conscious Bekki stood apart from the rest of her mind and reflected that after some of the things people had seen today, this was all going to look a bit boring and pedestrian… then she focused everything she'd got on controlling a dozen fast fireballs, stunting and flying them in an assortment of spins and turns and climbs and dizzying descents. Fireballs were something she was good at. Her speciality.

Out of devilment, she made an especially fiery-looking orange ball orbit her sister Famke a couple of times, to briefly wreath her in glowing orange light, then spin back up into the air to rejoin its wingmates.

 _Just making a point, little sister._ Bekki noted her sister's reaction with satisfaction, then considered it was time to wind things up. One by one the fireballs returned to the tip of her blade. She focused, made the necessary adjustment, and flipped each one up straight and vertically.

Eighty or so feet up, it expanded to two or three times its previous size and exploded into a cascade of multicolour firework sparks. _Shame this isn't at night…_

People appreciated this. It got her cheers and a round of applause. She heard Feegle voices shouting _There's the wee girl! Is she or is she not a wee brammer?_

And then she was walking back to her family, her performance piece over.

* * *

A little later, in the early evening, the judgement came in. Bekki's supernova fireballs had come in third. Sophie's demonstration of the Horseman's Word had placed second. The winner of that year's Witch Trials was Apricity Brabble and her amazing fertile feet. Bekki sighed. _Of course_ the popular vote would be for instant cereal. This was Lancre, after all. But it had been spectacular. She resolved to ask Apricity more about how it worked; her friend had said something about having thought about the interplay between the Wintersmith and the Summer Lady, and she had wondered where the intermediate seasons of Spring and Autumn fitted in, you know, the time you plant and the time you harvest, and she had done some creative thinking about this, and, well...

Bekki even got a bronze medal for it. One of Lettice Earwig's innovations. Apricity Brabble had shrugged, and contemplated her own gold medal, a large showy thing on a golden-yellow ribbon.

"Just gold leaf over base metal. Ah well, she means well." she said.

And allocation of Steadings was going on. Nanny Ogg and Tiffany Aching were moving among the throng, hearing and debating, and eventually deciding. No formal announcement would be made, but bekki noticed Mrs Earwig making diligent notes on a pad...

Finally there was a barbecue supper and music. Bekki's friend Alison the minstrel was organising this part. By late afternoon, musical instruments were arriving. Alison greeted Bekki and said "I've got a double bass here... not sure if it's been properly tuned, though."

 _ **To be continued. There will be a part two.**_

 **(1)** In my Hogswatch story, _**La Nuit de Pere Porcher**_ , when an anthrorpomorphical entity gets stroppy and two Assassins have to look to a wizard for professional support.

 **(2)** Mother Superior had agreed that some things are so educative that it merits a day away from formal lessons. Especially if Ruth is developing a little magic. She _**ought**_ to be in the company of witches for a day. View it as a sort of independent assessment of her talents from suitably qualified professionals, perhaps?

 **(3)** Bekki was also pleasantly pleased that the Trolls and Dwarfs present got on peaceably enough. She wished the same could be said of those people from Rimwards Howondaland and the Zulu Empire who had found themselves in Lancre. More on this later.

 **(4)** He wasn't. It went with his continuing inability to grow a proper beard

 **(5)** The monopedos rabbit is discussed in my short _**Bad Hair Day**_. It gets a story to itself in _**Facebook Shorts Written For The Times.**_

 **(6)** American readers: think "star quarterback". Same vibe.

 **(7)** Alice Band had primed Shawn. Alice had a sense of humour too. Bekki watched her mother wince, probably as much at the fact Shawn had read her married name with a soft "J", as at the "Lady Stibbons" part. Becoming a Joanna always made her wince.

 **(8)** A variant on a theme of _koeksisters,_ which are sort of not-quite cake, not quite doughnut and more than a biscuit. You also get _Hertzogkoeke_ and _Krugerkoekie,_ named in honour of competing Boer leaders in much the same way a mark of distinction for a great General is to have a foodstuff named after you. _Heunigkoeken_ literally means _honey-cookie: koekie_ is how America gets the name for "biscuit", via Dutch.

 **(9)** To expat South Africans, this is an indispensable taste of Home: the local equivalent of Momma's apple pie. Very sweet and often spiced. Lethal to dieters and the weight-conscious. Just whisper " _melktert n'roobuis_ " to a Saffie and watch them go misty-eyed…

 **(10)** Suki van der Graaf had been forced to sit this one out. she was currently confined to Rimwards Howondaland, permission to leave the country having been denied her on pain of re-arrest. Some people were _nervous_ as to where she'd take it into her head to travel next in search of a story, and she was now denied any chance of an exit visa. Her father had advised her to take it without complaint and maybe in a year or so the ban would be lifted. When the syndicated stories got to Pratoria, however, she would rewrite them for local consumption in her own characteristic style. Bekki would get to read them later and wince. **(10.1)  
**

 **(10.1)** _Bronze medal for Rimwards Howondaland in the Discworld's premiere contest of magical skills! Girl with family roots in Piemberg shows the world what Vondalaander girls can do in world-level competition against the very best!_ Suki would also add _Is it not time that the archaic, outmoded and frankly ridiculous laws prohibiting the practice of Witchcraft in our nation were repealed?_ And write an opinion piece strongly advocating this position, which would be read by a great many people and provoke debate. It would also be cut out, carefully, and added to her own swelling BOSS file, naturally. Suki was proud of her BOSS file.

 **(11)** Folk dress and national costume: basically what your ethnicity/nationality wore three centuries ago and taken up to eleven. Give your usually foreign audience exactly what they expect to see and pander to expectations. Hence Dutch girls in the clogs and peculiar hats, Bavarians in dirndls, Welsh women in the stovepipe hat with the buckle on it and the big ornate shawls. This is universal.

 **(12)** moments where an Assassins' Guild school pupil can get away with calling her teacher a great big cow only come once in a lifetime. Connie had assured herself of a Crowning Moment of Awesome in the judgement of her peers.

 _ **The Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and I'm Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.**_

 _ **Damn. Re-reading**_ **Wintersmith** _ **and discovering the man Petulia Gristle (presumably) married, the pig farmer with the biggest pig farm in Lancre, DOES have an official name… Matty Weaver…. Well, he's Gouther Mossock in this tale, which fits the Alan Garner vibe. Perhaps my take on the Discworld isn't a complete one-on-one canonical – it's an Alternate Universe which goes 90%+ the way to being Terry's… well, there's a big Multiverse out there and there must be infinite Discworlds too… this is the one where Ponder Stibbons, in defiance of probability, got married and started a family…**_

 _ **Got into a YouTube comments page on the Red Army Choir, with a viewer speculating that the USA should have fielded its own equivalent as part of the Cold War arms race and that in this case Soviet technology was streets ahead. The idea of the Cold War being contested in music and dance appealed to me. I wrote back:**_

But in the same vein... they'd have fielded Cossacks doing that squatting-down and kicking out Cossack dance, _we'd_ have sent in an SAS squad of Morris dancers akin to Bill Tidy's Cloggies... possibly a score-draw and a lot of broken shins in lethal close-quarter dancing... and Cossack dancers with sabres up against a crack squad of Scotsmen with claymores comparing sword-dancing styles... that would be a close one going the full fifteen rounds, with, just possibly, the Jocks shading it...

 _ **The idea of weapons-grade heavy rock and a MIRV Eric Clapton is interesting, but…**_ it would have to be folk song, or local equivalent of. The USA fielding Country and Western artistes, perhaps, with the Russians making official protest about deadly banned weapons , the musical equivalent of nerve gas, barred by the Geneva Convention. What do we Brits have to compete... the theme tune from "The Archers", maybe? Or the classic line-up of Aran sweaters sticking a finger in one ear and droning on about life and love in the seventeenth century…

 _ **Bonus piece: from a conversation in the Fortean Times forums about things that might be mistaken for UFO's. Inspired by a piece on YouTube about legendary demolitions man and steam enthusiast Fred Dibnah, arguably the life model for Dick Simnel in the Discworld. Fred is pure Discworld, btw. Look him up.**_

Watching the great Fred Dibnah in re-runs of his TV work. I watched this episode - on the logistics of getting things from ground level to the top of an industrial chimney and back again - and a thought occured to me. Watch the video from about 4:00 in.

Dibhah devised his own in-house system of getting small skips to and from the top of the tower where he was working, so as to have a continual back-and-forth of full and empty skips in transit at any one time. Useful if he was dismantling brickwork at two or three hundred feet up.

Watching this system in action, filmed in indifferent daylight from various angles from anything up to a quarter of a mile away. It occured to me: the ropes on the pulley system are invisible until you get really close up, or unless they catch the light. What you are seeing are rounded black objects against the sky, moving with intent between the ground and the top of a factory chimney, and doing so continually. This is Dibnah's own system, don't forget: bespoke to him. Not exactly industry-standard. Hard to explain, until somebody comes along who can explain what you're looking at.

Anybody watching this - and those rounded black dots flying in the sky would have been visible from some distance away, as the camera work shows - who didn't realise they were looking at an industrial steeplejack in action - somebody who didn't have all the facts and who was watching round objects flying in the sky seemingly of their own volition, but with some sort of purpose. How might they interpret this? Taken out of context - these are _literally_ unidentified flying objects. And remain so until (in this case) a perfectly reasonable explanation is given...

Still wondering how many UFO reports, made in good faith by people seeing bizarre things in the sky, might be explicable by rational, explicable, but in context out of the ordinary, things like this. it occurs to me, in fact, to ask if any reported UFO sightings in the North-West of England in the time-period 1970-85 could be correlated to paces where Fred Dibnah is known to have worked... a nomadic demolition man, going to where the jobs are, and taking this bins-and-pulley system with him... meanwhile people not aware of this might look up and think - oh my god...

I also wonder. The stated reason, in fiction, for the Vogons coming to planet Earth was to demolish something in the way of Progress. Is it just conceivable that there are intergalactic Fred Dibnahs out there, romantic adherents to an older way of life, doggedly working with outmoded technology from a previous age because it has more style to it. What we are seeing are not so much state-of-the-art futuristic spacecraft, but the interstellar version of Dibnah's steam engines, out for a joyride and driven by enthusiasts... sent to a backwater corner of the galaxy to keep them out of the way and so as not to create traffic bottlenecks in the principal spaceways... and that the interstellar Dibnah might also make ends meet by doing odd jobs here and there in the Galaxy. (does this explain supernovas - galactic equivalents of redundant chimneys needing to be felled - and that black holes are infill sites for industrial rubble?)

 _ **This led to a very short piece of speculative fiction which is not Discworld but should reach a wider readership:**_

Fehred Diibna'h pushed his soft shapeless headwear up over his brow, adjusted the set of his visual acuity enhancers, and took a deep drag of the addictive herb gathered by expeditions to a small blue-green planet on the remoter reaches of the western spiral arm of the galaxy. Lots of people who knew the secret visited there for the herb, even risked detection by going into local retail outlets disguised as the dominant native life-form, in order to buy convenient packs of the herb in a clever delivery system that involved igniting one end and thern inhaling. Fehred had never had any bother with this. In Bolton, Lancashire, he passed for a native.

"Class seven yellow star, is that." he said, nodding towards the display on the visual screen of his starship, a battered old planet-rover that had seen better decades. It was called the _Heart of Third-State Oxygen Dihydride_.

"Redundant nuclear furnace, outlasted its usefulness, together with its attendant Dyson Sphere. Whole lot needs knocking down. Planning permission to build a hyperspace freeway, apparently. In the way. Reckon I can get whole lot cleared inside three months. Nowt to it."

He shook his head, sadly.

"Sad to see them old Dyson Spheres going. Hope a few get kept as industrial heritage sites. Still, got to make a living. got me old flying saucer to renovate,one of t' ones the bloody Greys don't use now as they've moved on to better. Right, lad. Got the old unobtanium props? Used to be rails for a mass transit system, did those. Nobody wants them now they've moved on to hyperunobtanium. I thought, happen I can recycle those for work. Nowt props up an excavation in a Dyson Sphere better nor unobtanium, gradely! And it withstands heat of a Class Seven Yellow for _just long enough ._ so the bugger goes supernova in the right direction. OK, lad, let's get spacesuit on so I can start building up t'scaffolding decks... don't want anything dropping on folk in Tau Centauri, that's right in't way if I get it wrong. Tell thee what, it'll draw a crowd when this bugger goes down. People coming from all over to watch..."

 **Russkaya Rat'**

Ой, что-то мы засиделись, братцы ,

Не пора ли нам разгуляться?

Русь молодая , силы немерено ,

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Ратью пойдём да погоним ворога,

Русь молодая, сердцу дорого,

Да не пристало нам сидеть по хатам

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Было это братцы давным-давно

Чёрные силы пришли войной.

А мы не знали, не ожидали

Жили, любили, детей рожали

Их сорок тысяч сороков,

Русь не видала таких врагов.

А мы не знали, не ожидали

Жили, любили, детей рожали

И полыхнули терема да хаты,

Бабы вплачь да малые ребята,

А мужики все, брат за брата,

Вышли за Родину воевать

Ой, что-то мы засиделись, братцы ,

Не пора ли нам разгуляться?

Русь молодая , силы немерено ,

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Ратью пойдём да погоним ворога,

Русь молодая, сердцу дорого,

Да не пристало нам сидеть по хатам

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Так в наши хаты пришла беда,

Жаркая сеча была тогда.

А мы не знали, не ожидали

Жили, любили, детей рожали

Ой, да не уж-то Русская рать

Не постоит за Родину-мать,

Били-рубили, ворога добили

И победили чёрную рать.

И засияло небо голубое,

Полная чаша мира да покоя

А кто пожалует к нам с войною...

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Ой, что-то мы засиделись, братцы ,

Не пора ли нам разгуляться?

Русь молодая , силы немерено ,

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Ратью пойдём да погоним ворога,

Русь молодая, сердцу дорого,

Да не пристало нам сидеть по хатам

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

*И засияло небо голубое,

Полная чаша мира да покоя

А кто пожалует к нам с войною...

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Ой, что-то мы засиделись, братцы ,

Не пора ли нам разгуляться?

Русь молодая , силы немерено ,

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!

Ратью пойдём да погоним ворога,

Русь молодая, сердцу дорого,

Да не пристало нам сидеть по хатам

Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!(*Х2)

Тьма проходит, и истинный свет уже светит.

Кто любит брата своего, тот пребывает во свете.

Кто ненавидит брата своего, тот находится во тьме

И мы имеем от Него заповедь, чтобы любящий бога

Любил и брата своего, в любви нет страха

Пребывающий в любви пребывает в Боге

И Бог в нем, и Бог есть любовь

Oy, chto-to my zasidelis', brattsy ,  
Ne pora li nam razgulyat'sya?  
Rus' molodaya , sily nemereno ,  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Rat'yu poydom da pogonim voroga,  
Rus' molodaya, serdtsu dorogo,  
Da ne pristalo nam sidet' po khatam  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Bylo eto brattsy davnym-davno  
Chornyye sily prishli voynoy.  
A my ne znali, ne ozhidali  
Zhili, lyubili, detey rozhali

Ikh sorok tysyach sorokov,  
Rus' ne vidala takikh vragov.  
A my ne znali, ne ozhidali  
Zhili, lyubili, detey rozhali

I polykhnuli terema da khaty,  
Baby vplach' da malyye rebyata,  
A muzhiki vse, brat za brata,  
Vyshli za Rodinu voyevat'

Oy, chto-to my zasidelis', brattsy ,  
Ne pora li nam razgulyat'sya?  
Rus' molodaya , sily nemereno ,  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Rat'yu poydom da pogonim voroga,  
Rus' molodaya, serdtsu dorogo,  
Da ne pristalo nam sidet' po khatam  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Tak v nashi khaty prishla beda,  
Zharkaya secha byla togda.  
A my ne znali, ne ozhidali  
Zhili, lyubili, detey rozhali

Oy, da ne uzh-to Russkaya rat'  
Ne postoit za Rodinu-mat',  
Bili-rubili, voroga dobili  
I pobedili chornuyu rat'.

I zasiyalo nebo goluboye,  
Polnaya chasha mira da pokoya  
A kto pozhaluyet k nam s voynoyu...  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Oy, chto-to my zasidelis', brattsy ,  
Ne pora li nam razgulyat'sya?  
Rus' molodaya , sily nemereno ,  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Rat'yu poydom da pogonim voroga,  
Rus' molodaya, serdtsu dorogo,  
Da ne pristalo nam sidet' po khatam  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

*I zasiyalo nebo goluboye,  
Polnaya chasha mira da pokoya  
A kto pozhaluyet k nam s voynoyu...  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Oy, chto-to my zasidelis', brattsy ,  
Ne pora li nam razgulyat'sya?  
Rus' molodaya , sily nemereno ,  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!

Rat'yu poydom da pogonim voroga,  
Rus' molodaya, serdtsu dorogo,  
Da ne pristalo nam sidet' po khatam  
Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!(*KH2)

T'ma prokhodit, i istinnyy svet uzhe svetit.  
Kto lyubit brata svoyego, tot prebyvayet vo svete.  
Kto nenavidit brata svoyego, tot nakhoditsya vo t'me  
I my imeyem ot Nego zapoved', chtoby lyubyashchiy boga  
Lyubil i brata svoyego, v lyubvi net strakha  
Prebyvayushchiy v lyubvi prebyvayet v Boge  
I Bog v nem, i Bog yest' lyubov'

 _ **Machine translation:** (can be improved, but flowery and poetical)_

Oh, something we sat up, brothers,  
Is not it time for us to make a fuss?  
Russia is young, strength nemereno,  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

Let's go and let's drive the wolf,  
Russia is young, heart is expensive,  
Yes, it does not fit us to sit on the huts  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

It was the brothers a long time ago  
Black forces came by war.  
And we did not know, did not expect  
Lived, loved, gave birth to children

Their forty thousand magpies,  
Russia has not seen such enemies.  
And we did not know, did not expect  
Lived, loved, gave birth to children

And the tower and the huts flashed,  
The women lament and the little guys,  
And all the peasants, brother for brother,  
They went to fight for their Motherland

Oh, something we sat up, brothers,  
Is not it time for us to make a fuss?  
Russia is young, strength nemereno,  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

Let's go and let's drive the wolf,  
Russia is young, heart is expensive,  
Yes, it does not fit us to sit on the huts  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

So in our huts came trouble,  
Hot sweat was then.  
And we did not know, did not expect  
Lived, loved, gave birth to children

Oh, yes, not really Russian army  
It will not stand for Motherland,  
Billy-chopped, the goal was finished  
And they defeated the black army.

And the sky glowed blue,  
Full cup of peace and tranquility  
And who will come to us with the war ...  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

Oh, something we sat up, brothers,  
Is not it time for us to make a fuss?  
Russia is young, strength nemereno,  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

Let's go and let's drive the wolf,  
Russia is young, heart is expensive,  
Yes, it does not fit us to sit on the huts  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

* And the sky glowed blue,  
Full cup of peace and tranquility  
And who will come to us with the war ...  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

Oh, something we sat up, brothers,  
Is not it time for us to make a fuss?  
Russia is young, strength nemereno,  
Give me a horse and a good sword!

Let's go and let's drive the wolf,  
Russia is young, heart is expensive,  
Yes, it does not fit us to sit on the huts  
Give me a horse and a good sword! (* X2)

Darkness is passing, and the true light is already shining.  
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light.  
He who hates his brother is in darkness  
And we have a commandment from him, that he who loves God  
He loved his brother, there is no fear in love  
He who abides in love abides in God  
And God is in him, and God is love


	52. Twee wêrelde vergadering

_**Strandpiel 52**_

 _ **Twee wêrelde vergadering – two worlds meeting**_

 _ **Advancing the story to the point where a natural break will occur, Book One can close, and Book Two will deal with Bekki's life in Howondaland. So closing all the closeable loose ends – for now.**_

 _ **To cover: events in Howondaland**_

 _ **(Ruth N; the van der Graafs; Mariella and Horst; Olga and Eddie and kids.)**_

 _ **Summer music practice**_

 _ **Bekki in the Watch and training for the Pegasus Service**_

 _ **First long-haul solo flight**_

 _ **End of Book One**_

 _ **Frustrating: all the time at work and unable to write, I've been noodling away with ideas for scenes and incidents to continue this tale and had a lot planned out inside my head but now I've got the time and opportunity to commit the ideas to screen, are they flowing? Like treacle…. The continuations I had so clearly mapped out inside my head when there wasn't an opportunity to write them down are coming back, but patchily and with great reluctance. Sod's Law….**_

 _ **The time is now approaching September, anyway, covering events in the months immediately after the Witch Trials. We catch up some of with our cast of characters at various locations around the Disc…**_

 _ **Most of the Russian phrases used here are mechanical translations via Google Translate. I have cross-referenced and used intuition and more research (Russian magical traditions) to double-check them where I can – a degree in linguistics has to count for something – but if any Russian readers can suggest better – love to hear from you!**_

 _ **Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland.**_

Life in the new suburb of Rimwards Howondaland's capital city, the one likely to be named Johanna Smith-Rhodesburg but which for the moment was called Housing Project 42, was relaxed and easy.

Olga and Eddie appreciated this was a nice place to bring up a family. A big new house bought a lot more cheaply than the apartment they also owned in Ankh-Morpork, with a big spacious garden. The most they could do in the Ankh-Morpork home was to have a few window-boxes. It was convenient for Eddie to commute to the University, where he taught, in those moments when he had no alternative. Eddie was first and foremost a research Wizard.

Olga Romanoff shrugged a resigned and fatalistic Far Überwaldean shrug. With the twins growing up fast, they'd have to get a bigger place in Ankh-Morpork. With at least three bedrooms. It would be a big bite in the family finances, even with the Agreement in place. People like Johanna Smith-Rhodes were looking out for opportunities for her. Johanna had even offered her a loan. You know. Until you sort everything out with your family, Olga.

Olga shrugged again. She didn't want to feel beholden to anyone, even to a generous friend who was putting no strings or conditions on her offer. She strongly felt this was something she and Eddie would have to do on their own. It felt better that way. And she'd been self-reliant ever since the rift with her family when she had been fifteen. Oh, it was healing, now, but slowly. She watched the activity in her back garden, and listened to the beat being called.

"один, два, три, _четыре_!"

It had all began when she and the kulak girl, Irena, had run away. The old _ved'ma_ , Babuishka Natalia, had said she had taught them both as much as she could concerning Witchcraft. She had introduced both girls to the strange foreign woman who had suddenly appeared, the one with the outlandish unpronounceable name of Perspicacia Tick. Her name apparently translated _as небольшое кусающее паразитическое насекомое,_ or a _клещ,_ or a _вошь_ _._ She and Irena had giggled about it, thinking a Morporkian would not understand. But Miss Tick had turned round and said, in good but accented Far Überwaldean "Actually, you might consider it also means the _тиканье_ of a clock or a metronome."

They had been chastened. And had heard of a faraway place called Lancre, where girls learnt to be Witches in a different way. And both had decided they wanted to go there.

And then they'd crossed a continent to get there, the aristocrat and the peasant, reliant on each other **.(1)** Olga's father, the Grand Duke, had been furious and had cut her off, disowned her. She had learnt self-reliance quickly. And vastly improved her Morporkian. Irena had had to learn a lot more of the Morporkian than she had.

Later adventures had taken her to the Air Police, and then the marvellous thing called the Pegasus Service. She had met Eddie when a war and a battle had threatened **.(2)** One thing had led to another and then to marriage and twin children.

" _odin, dva, tri, chetyre!"_

Olga irrelevantly thought of the other new language she'd been forced to get to grips with, _Vondalaans._ Marrying Eddie, living for at least part of the time in his country, and with the children being brought up here so they'd grow up speaking their father's language. She had to learn it too.

 _Een, twee, drie, vier!_ She reflected " _twee_ " sounded a little like " _dva_ ", and " _drie_ " in Vondalaans was like " _tri_ " in her native language. _Some things in common, then._

Her father had thawed. Not completely. There was still a lot of ice there. But they'd gone Home, by Pegasus, to the family domain, for the first time in years. Lady Sybil Ramkin had somehow been _persuading_ him. And her mother. Who had probably been _emphatic_ with Father about wanting to see her grandchildren. Grand Duke Nicholas Romanoff hadn't exactly been _warm_ to Eddie. But he'd acknowledged his grandchildren, who had been learning the Rus language from their mother. Olga had been insistent about this. And it looked as if an Agreement would be made between a father and his only daughter, the nominal Heiress to the Grand Duchy, or who had been until her father had disowned her. Olga suspected that he found the alternative even worse, that the Duchy would then go by default to one of her cousins, possibly Natasha. Tasha was a graduate Assassin, and Assassins valued these things. More so than Witches.

And father still had big dreams of the Tsarate being restored. But the Rus people were spread over four or five countries, not just Far Überwald, and no Grand Duke on his own had the power to be acclaimed the uncontested Tsar. Her family seat was technically in Zlobenia: the full title was Grand Duke of the Border Marches of Zlobenia and Far Überwald. Two of several countries that would need to be reunited, or dissolved in their current form and _reconstructed_ , before a Tsar Of All The Rus People could emerge.

She shook her head. _Politics._

" _odin, dva, tri, chetyre!"_

If she understood it right, Father was prepared to offer a solution. Olga would not now become Grand Duchess. That was fine: she didn't want it. Her life was elsewhere. On Father's death, the title would skip a generation. Her son Vassily would become Grand Duke.

She looked over to regard her children. They were in this strange, maddening, bloody infuriating sometimes, but all the same an _attractive_ , foreign country, learning how to be Vondalaanders. Like their father. But if Vassily now had a Destiny, he – _and_ his sister Valentina – were also going to have to learn how to be Rus. As well as being cosmopolitan Ankh-Morporkians, which was also important.

She sighed. Vondalaanders spoke of _strandpiels_ , people caught between two cultures and continents, who had to learn to be both. Her children had to become triply strandpiel. Three places, three cultures, three languages.

Well, their education in how to be Rus was beginning.

" _odin, dva, tri, chetyre!"_

Olga allowed herself pride in her children. They were learning the movements and steps of the _shashka_ , using the short knout whips, the handles right for a Cossack sabre, but with the blades replaced by short cords of knotted leather. Their teacher had shaken her head at Valla's earnest request for swords, explaining that she was just coming up to five years old, and not even Cossack daughters got to wield the swords so young. They would be too heavy, for one thing, and you must learn the steps and the moves _thoroughly_ , even before you move on to wooden training swords.

But Valla was learning, Vassily too. The best part of a year spent flying Home, or at least to the Steppes, with Irena and the younger girls, to learn to dance together for their performance piece at the Witch Trials, had not been wasted. They'd also learnt something of a different tradition in magic and the Craft.

In return, Xenia Galina had asked to see something of the world, and the way women in other places practiced the arts of the _babiushka_ and the _ved'ma._ Xenia Galina had never left the wide Steppes and their bordering mountains before. They had brought her to the Witch Trials, to lead the dance with them. And to be introduced to other witches in the country that was now the heart and focus of Disc witchcraft, whatever form it took.

And now she was in Howondaland, teaching Cossack traditions and skills to the children. It was good to have her. Nanny Ogg had cooed and gushed over the twins, and had then said "They both got magic, Olga, love. You'll have to do something about that."

Valla would go to Lancre when she was older. Vassily... Olga frowned. He'd have to go Wizard. Not, then, the Assassins' School. Lord Downey had been _hinting_. And their nanny Annaliese, who had been wonderful, had left. She wanted to marry. There was a man over in Piemberg who worked for Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes. The understanding had begun while Annaliese had been working for Johanna Smith-Rhodes, and for some years had been edging towards marriage, albeit at a leisuredly speed. Olga had not been able to deny her. So for the moment, the nanny role was Xenia's. And the children adored her. A nanny who could dance like that with two swords... and who wasn't just a _ved'ma_. She was also a _shamanskaya_.

Being senior rank in the Pegasus Service had privileges. Her family, with the aid of navigator Buggy Swires, could travel anywhere they liked. It made commuting quick. Movements were usually dictated by where Olga had to be in the course of a working week, and Eddie also planned his week to be in step with hers. This usually meant a few days here, to commute to one University at Witwatersrand, or in Ankh-Morpork, where Eddie was an accepted member of the band of research Wizards at Unseen University. This had meant her husband had acheived the Holy Grail of academia: full tenure at _two_ Universities and a full-time salary from each for what amounted to two part-time jobs. The money was handy. And Lord Vetinari had accepted that a full-time working mother, one who did sterling service for Ankh-Morpork, needed some latitude in her career so as to continue giving sterling service. He saw no reason to intervene in her using the resources of the Service to enhance her work-life balance **. (3)**

Latterly, her family had been visiting the _Rodinia_ a lot. Olga and Eddie had now to consider what sort of an education their children would get. One thing was for sure: it would not be a conventional one.

After a while, Xenia suggested the children should take a break. She smiled a gentle smile and tossed a scabbarded sabre to Olga. Olga caught the pommel effortlessly. The two Witches danced a _shashka_ of their own, with occassional clashing sabres...

 _ **Turfloop Township**_ , _**Bitterfontein, Rimwards Howondaland:**_

The group of policemen looked on with a sort of uneasy shuffling bafflement as Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen, ignoring them, held a dress up to the excited little girl. She said that in her opinion, Minnie would look lovely in it, and she ought to save it for Octeday or for very best, hmm? Not for everyday?

Mariella looked suitably attentive and friendly and serious, and tried not to wince as the little girl shyly but effusively thanked her, calling her " _Baas-lady_ " and " _Mevrou_ ", as their relative status demanded. She wished the bloody policemen were not there, as their presence was making most of the people here nervous. It could be a lot more informal then, and not have overtones of the Lady of the Manor dispensing charity and largesse to the serfs. And needing a police escort to do so.

Mariella thought that was un-necessary. The township at Turfloop provided labour for local farms and businesses, including her own. She knew she could walk here any time she liked – _well, any time I'm invited_ – without needing to wear weapons and without needing an armed escort. Many of the men and women here worked for Horst and herself. Mariella knew them all by name, and had made it her business to know about spouses, children and extended families.

Mariella sighed at the very idea that a girl's dress, that had probably already seen three owners and was one wearer away from being shonky-shop, could be seized upon as if it were new off the rack at Boggi's. Mariella herself was not temperamentally inclined to skirts and dresses, although she could wear them if she had to.

But that was a good reason for her being here today, along with other ladies who had got the general idea of being charitable and providing relief to the poor. Mariella had spent time trying to get the revolutionary concept over that there was no such thing as _deserving poor_ , or by implication _undeserving poor_. There was just _poor_.

And in most circumstances in this country, _poor_ went hand-in-hand with being black. Mariella felt uneasy about this. Their poverty, and her being very affluent indeed, were somehow connected. They worked for the Lensen family and worked hard and loyally, but in most cases never got out of a rudimentary shack in the township.

Mariella turned to one of the other Ladies who had come out today on a mission of poor relief. She had seen the need and had been prepared to advance a lot of money. Mariella had accepted the donation, on the condition this particular Lady came herself, and practically assisted. She felt it would be good for her ongoing education.

"We do whet hes to be done end whet _should_ be done." Mariella reminded her, speaking Morporkian as this was the other woman's first language. "End best you are here to see for yourself. So you hev no comforting illusions."

"My father says they are poor because the men drink and gamble and use dagga." she had said. "That we can't be blamed for their wasting the money we pay them."

Mariella had then invited the other woman to follow her nose, and indicated a larger and more prosperous-looking building.

"Of course they do." Mariella had said. "Thet's the shebeen. Or one of them. Ag, if _you_ lived in a place like this, wouldn't _you_ want to drink yourself stupid? End of course the children need more than one set of clothes, ones a scarecrow might not refuse. There are femilies who might eppreciate more than one meal a day. Old people who have worked for white employers all their lives, end still hev nothing to show for it et the end. Thet is whet we are here for. Without eny fuss, without preaching eny sermons, without expecting more than just normal unforced thenks. _We do whet is needed_. _We do whet works_."

"Of course. We do what works."

Mariella smiled. _We do what works_ was the family motto of the Smith-Rhodes'. It did no harm to remind Chloe of this, as she'd married into the Family.

"End besides. I want, end Horst wants, people coming into work for us every morning who are healthy, well-fed, wearing good fitting clothing, end who are _not_ still reeling drunk or hungover from the filthy stuff the shebeens brew up. This is not only _morally_ right, it makes good business sense. _Healthy employees work better_. Thet is not rocket wizardry."

Mariella held the eyes of Chloe Smith-Rhodes, to make sure she was getting the point. Satisfied, she looked away, and gave a begrudging nod to the policemen. They had to be here, she supposed. Chloe was, after all, wife of the local MP, and a member of not one, but _two_ , of the most powerful and influential families in the nation. If she took it into her head to visit bleck townships and Do Good Works, she couldn't be stopped, but she had to be seen to be escorted. Nobody would want to explain it to either Charles Smith-Rhodes or Jakob DeBeers, if she wasn't.

It was still, Mariella thought, a bloody nuisance. At least several other local Ladies were with them, a powerful coalition of important local farmers' wives, the Mevrous of Bitterfontein. Most, to a greater or lesser extent, were practical women who thought like Mariella. All of whom had wanted Julian Smith-Rhodes as their political representative. Mariella had not needed to do much background persuading there.

 _And it cannot do Julian's political career any harm, if his wife is seen as being socially concerned and gives generously to charitable causes…_

Mariella watched the food being unloaded and distributed. It would go to people and families most in need and it would be distributed fairly. She had said as much to the headman of the township, a sort of combination of native chief, Mayor, alpha male and leader of the Township Council. She understood it was a hard place to be; with little real formal authority except that he could impose or which residual tribal affiliations bestowed, such as those which the ruling whites allowed to remain. He was responsible to the local Commisioner for Native Affairs, a role which was politically a football played between the Bureau of Internal Affairs and the Bureau of State Security, for good order and acceptable behaviour among the blecks. BOSS took a close interest in the townships.

Mariella considered Captain Verdraainer for a moment, the local BOSS head in Bitterfontein. _Of course_ he'd be here.

She turned back to her conversation with the headman about how the food was to be distributed. She wasn't telling him; merely suggesting. There was a difference. And he understood. His predecessor as headman had accepted the gifts with all thanks and deference on one of Mariella's first visits. She had suspected something was amiss when she saw the other big men who worked with the head man, and the sullen, frightened looks on the natives which she realised were not just suspicious of the whites. Then, the other ladies of the committee had considered it was enough to just deliver the stuff, spend as little time as possible amongst the blecks, and to go home again, in the warmth of a necessary job well done. Mariella had only just arrived in Bitterfontein then and had realised she would have to establish herself in a new town. But she'd begun by asking her mother-in-law, Mevrou Hendricka, and then she had started establishing friendly relations with the housemaids and some of the more approachable black workers in the vineyards and the bottling plant. She had not so much asked questions as listened. A short time later, the former head man in the native township had been visited at night by a black-clad shadowy person who had made it clear that _impounding_ aid that was freely given, and using his gang to enforce _selling_ it to people who needed it, thus enriching himself in the process, would not be tolerated any more.

The long sharp blade that was pricking his throat acted as an inducement. The black figure then informed him that there was no point calling for henchmen, as they had been _dealt with_. He was not going to be reported to the police – _yet_ \- as this went against his visitor's principles. His visitor said they worked for a different organisation that was _scarier_ than the police. It was even worse, in some respects, than the BOSS. It did not work to the same rules. He could now make plans to resign the Headmanship, collect his wife and family, and move to a different part of the country. Arrangements had been made and passes written. Oh. And the money you made by stealing charitable goods. Deliver that, before you leave, to Mevrou Hendricka at the Lensen plaas. She will use it for _legitimate_ charitable ends. Are we understood?

And in the morning, he found a pink receipt slip, to tell him he had been visited by the Guild of Assassins of Ankh-Morpork **.(4)** Some reputations resound around the world.

Two dead henchmen, men with seriously bad reputations, were investigated, disinterestedly, by the Bitterfontein Watch, who put it down to "tribal unrest in the townships" and closed the case.

The new headman in the township had learnt from this, and food aid was now distributed freely and fairly. Mariella insisted the women of the Charitable Committee remained to see this was done. She had also been gratified to hear her title of "Red Death To Zulus" had preceded her. Nobody here was a Zulu or tribally related to them – wrong side of the country – and tribal loyalties said that anyone who thinned Zulu numbers out a bit, arrogant bastards, was a Good Thing, even if she _was_ white.

The new _mevrou_ had spent several years now, building a reputation among whites and blacks alike. One side agreed that young Horst Lensen had somehow managed to get one good woman and he was vastly improved by it. The blacks treated her with a sort of unforced respect. Mariella had arrived.

She moved among her people, chatting to them with easy respect and common civility, greeting relatives of her employees, making it clear she knew who was who and who was related to who, expressing fondness and interest in the children, projecting the air of a woman as much at home here as if she was among other white people at Kerk or at a social _braai_. Chloe moved with her, being introduced, getting to know people, conscientiously trying to fit in and not to give offence.

Then the circle of friendly black faces around Mariella and Chloe melted away. Chloe started, anxiously. Mariella did not look round.

"Captain Verdraainer." she said. "And Sergeant van Klaamer."

Mariella's voice had overtones of _whatever this is about, make it quick_.

The BOSS officer respectfully saluted her. She turned to consider him. Sergeant van Klaamer was a regular policeman, fairly decent, a long-standing copper with something of the universal Fred Colon about him. An _altekock,_ a time-served policeman who wanted to do his job with the minimum of unpleasantness, who was conscientious, so far as it went, without allowing it to get in the way of his fundamental laid-back laziness and _justnow_ mentality. But Verdraainer...

"You should not be moving among the blacks without an escort, _mevrou_ Smith-Rhodes-Lensen." he said. "Especially since Mrs Smith-Rhodes is with you, and she would be a prime target for _criminally-inclined_ blacks."

Something about Verdraainer's attitude said he believed _all_ blacks were criminally inclined. Mariella noted this.

"Besides, _mevrou_ , you are unarmed."

Mariella decided not to mention the throwing knives up each sleeve. Just in case. She had decided early on that a sword on one hip would be a barrier to open conversation with black people in their own space. And a _sjaemboek_ whip on the other side would be an unspeakable thing to carry here. Any black person seeeing that would not be inclined to be open. And she wanted open conversation, as nearly as was possible between equals. The hidden throwing knives were an insurance policy. **(5)** She noted both Verdraainer and van Klammer were wearing whips.

"Really? Never felt a need for it. But your concern is noted." Mariella said. She knew Chloe could follow a conversation in Vondalaans, although she preferred to speak Morporkian.

They walked back to where the wagons were being unloaded of things like mealie sacks and tinned condensed milk, basic serviceable goods that would keep. Mariella liked it when she was implicitly invited for a walk round the township. It was educating Chloe, for one thing. She _needed_ education on some of the realities of life in her nation. It was also good for her to see BOSS at close quarters, something her upbringing and social status had shielded her from. BOSS could not interfere with the old Families with impunity. Chloe had been born a de Beer and had married a Smith-Rhodes. She was insulated twice over.

And now she was seeing Verdraainer, a man who looked like a sociopathic meerkat, long, thin and rat-like, but very dangerous.

Mariella placidly waited for his move.

" _Mevrou_ , we have noted you have concerns for the welfare and wellbeing of the blecks." Verdraainer said. "But we too can express legitimate concerns that perhaps you are expressing _too much_ concern."

"So there are _limits_ on charity?" Mariella asked, ingenuously. "Captain, please point me to the statute and the regulation in law that places an upper limit on clothing the nearly-naked and feeding the hungry. Is there perhaps an official table I can refer to? The maximum number of wagons I may load, their size and carrying capacity, and the point at which I exceed a permitted maximum of aid? Are mealies, for instance, too good for the blacks, and I should instead load the sort of lower-quality grains that normally go to animal fodder? I should like to know, just in case I am inadvertantly breaking any laws of our land."

Mariella noted Verdraainer colour slightly. She concealed a smile. She had learnt the value of asking the right sort of question in her school days, the sort of thing a pupil might ask of her teacher, in the manner of an innocent seeker after truth. Several teachers at the Assassins' Guild School had been on the receiving end.

"Besides, charity is _commanded_ in our religion." she went on. "Pastor van der Draagsaam **(6)** has preached on this many times, concerning the duty of one who follows Io and Offler, and the need to clothe the naked and bring relief to the hungry. Those of us who have been favoured by the Gods _must_ do this. And I recall his sermon on the need to treat the blacks with stern and loving paternal care, that white people, as the superior race, are called upon to see to their spiritual and physical welfare. I'm surprised you don't recall this, Captain, as we belong to the same Kerk, and I see you at service every Octeday?"

Verdraainer appeared to be trying hard not to grind his teeth. He was being presented with a local landowner of impeccable credentials, who was not breaking any laws and coming across as a Gods-fearing and modest Boer woman displaying the appropriate level of humility and deference to her nation's laws and customs. But even so, she appeared to be taking the piss in some indefinable way. **(7)**

"Even so, _mevrou_. I must caution you to take care. It could be perceived that you are not behaving with due respect for the laws of apartheid that govern our society..."

"How so, Captain?" Mariella said, putting on a little wide-eyed innocence. "As I understand apartheid law, which is wise and right for our nation at this stage in its development, the burden of the white race is to do the thinking and the directing for a society which includes all races. The blacks are to live seperately and mixing between the races is to be kept to a necessary minimum. It is sometimes necessary to treat the blacks firmly, if they aspire to a role or a status they cannot resonably expect to hold. But at the same time, white people, especially those who benefit from black labour, are also _obliged_ to look after their black employees and to ensure minimum reasonable standards of care apply. To ensure decent housing, decent nutrition, decent clothing, good health and a basic level of education are given."

Mariella waved an arm around her.

"It's amazing how often we who benefit forget that apartheid involves obligations legally enforced on _us_ , too."

Verdraainer scowled for a moment, then altered his face to a rictus of a forced smile. Behind him, Sergeant van Klaaamer gave Mariella a big happy grin. Seeing the BOSS man outclassed and made uncomfortable was something he liked, too. And mevrou Mariella was okay, in his mind.

"You mention _good health_ , mevrou. Do you have plans there, too?"

Mariella gave a little smile.

" _Ja_. Basic healthcare. I'm hoping to get at least one skilled person by the end of the year. She can come out here, and attend to basic medical care for the blacks, if she has a mind. At present there is no doctor here. Or a nurse. And I do not want to lose workers un-necessarily through preventable ailments."

Verdraainer was making to walk away. He turned and gave Mariella a little satisfied smile.

" _Ja, mevrou_. Your niece from Ankh-Morpork, I hear."

Mariella kept her face straight, wondering how the Hells he'd found out. Then she realised. Probably via BOSS at the Embassy. Those _bliksems_ had _piemps_ everywhere.

"I'm looking forward to meeting her." Captain Verdraainer said. He saluted Mariella with a touch of his fingers to his cap. " _Rebecka_ , I believe? Daughter of your elder sister Johanna? Who was educated in a place called _Lancre_?"

He nodded and moved on.

There was silence for a few moments. Chloe turned to Mariella.

"He is _nasty_." she said.

"Ja. Best you should know. We all have BOSS files. Julian certainly will have. I know I do. Rebecka will have one by now. She's a Smith-Rhodes. That's a good reason."

"I'd like to meet Rebecka." Chloe said. "She sounds interesting."

"You will." Mariella said. "I think you'd like her."

She looked across to where the other _mevrous_ had been watching the _not-a-confrontation_ with the BOSS officer. Her mother in law, Hendricka Lensen, had been watching with deep interest, sitting in the chair provided, with her hands crossed on the top of her walking cane. Hendricka could not walk too far these days. A lifetime of running a _plaas_ , virtually single-handed for a long time, had seen to that. Mariella knew Horst was concerned for his mother's health. It was another good reason to have Bekki here, at least for a while. Hendricka grinned at her. She'd seen Mariella face down BOSS. And had approved.

"Bekki's got an obligation to complete in Ankh-Morpork." Mariella said. "But she'll be here by the end of the year. You should write to her. Introduce yourself as a Family member. Julian is her Godsfather, after all. She'd appreciate that."

They walked on together. It was almost time to close up here and go. But they'd do it _unhurriedly._ Just to make a point to BOSS. Mariella regarded Chloe de Beers Smith-Rhodes thoughtfully. She'd never win a brains trust. But she had turned out to be nothing like the liability Mariella had feared, when she'd set about giving the new family member some practical lessons in what it _meant_ to be a Smith-Rhodes. She had a good nature, a big heart, she loved Julian, and she was prepared to learn. Mariella remembered feeling baffled and perplexed as to exactly _why_ her sister Johanna was so friendly with Katerina Vinhuis, a woman Mariella thought was a complete one hundred per cent proven bubble-brained airhead. The friendship seemed incredibly implausible, and between two complete opposites. But after meeting Chloe, Mariella could, perhaps, see how it worked now. Chloe was completely relaxing to be around. Uncomplicated company. You couldn't hate her and she was innately likeable. Chloe, Mariella thought, was the Katerina in her life. You needed one. And if what Mariella suspected was right, in no later than eight or nine months, Chloe was going to need something like a Lancre-trained Witch. Another good reason for introducing her to Bekki.

She decided to write to Bekki when she got home. Some necessary advice. Her niece was going to need it.

 _ **Spion Kop Barracks, New Ankh, Ankh-Morpork.**_

 _Foot drill and parade drill are not to be scorned. Assimilate the movements until your body knows them. Then switch your mind off and let your body do the work. Inside your head you are then free. In that trance state I wrote long letters and made plans for the future…_

Bekki remembered her Aunt Mariella's good advice and moved with the rest, as Sergeant Detritus, a troll born to give parade-ground commands, took the Watch recruits through the motions.

Basic Watch training and living in barracks had proven to be not completely horrible. And there was a time limit to it. Mum had firmly refused any suggestion she live at home and commute in. Bekki had been slightly outraged at first and had felt a little betrayed. But Mum had been right.

 _Listen to me, Rebecka. If you are living in Rimwards Howondaland when you turn eighteen, then you will almost certainly be called up for National Service. That means living in barracks for twenty-two long dreary weeks. Under full military discipline. The City Watch may at most be mildly military. And the training lasts only for thirteen weeks. This will prepare you. Give you the experience you will need, when full military discipline applies to you for much longer. And you will learn good skills from the Watch. Sam Vimes does not teach irrelevant or time-watching skills to his Watchmen. Depend on it._

The barrack-room was shared with eleven other female recruits of various ages. Bekki was not used to communal living of this sort, but realised it was driven by necessity and goodwill. She steeled herself, and got on with it.

Spion Kop barracks – and Bekki wondered what it was in the Ankh-Morporkian military mind that made them name their military bases after their most humiliating defeats – was a large communal facility that acted as base depot for several of the official Regiments of the Army. The regular soldiers accepted that initial training for Watchmen happened here, as it was a big open space with several convenient drill squares. They were also, Bekki realised, shuddering, interested in the notion of women in uniforms. She and the other eleven attracted a lot of interest, _some_ of it not the unwelcome sort.

 _Spion Kop_ , the Howondalandian side of her whispered, one night. _That was only a humiliating defeat for the Morporkians, liewe heksie. I was there. I saw them stumbling up a steep hill. Only to discover a lot of Boers with crossbows were already at the top – and on the higher hills to each side – and we were waiting for them. Those who were not hit went down that kopjie a lot quicker than they climbed it. Their defeat._ **Our** _victory._ **(8)**

"Thank you, Johanna Cornelia", Bekki replied, then she went to sleep. Trying to ignore the snoring of the other Watchwomen around her.

 _ **The Turnwise Steppes, technically in Aceria, but as with so many things it depends whose geography book you're reading. "The Great Outdoors" is a nice neutral term.**_

Olga Romanoff knew she had to be back in Ankh-Morpork in a couple of weeks to supervise induction training for the new pilots in the air Police. But not just now. Nottie Garlick and Hanna von Strafenberg could be relied on to look after the basics for her. Two who would go to the Pegasus Service; three more recently-minted Lancre-trained Witches who would be trained for broomstick pilot duties, Witch Police Constables.

For now, Olga sat and watched the wide flowing river, and the spread of the flat grasslands rolling out to a distant horizon. There was the suspicion of mountain peaks on the very far horizon. The unfortunately named, if your first language was Morporkian, Urinal Mountains.

She had tried to explain these things to Xenia Galina, who spoke practically no Morporkian. That if you mentioned certain placenames and words to them, they tended to snigger and tried not to laugh. The Urinal Mountains. The river Lipsczitza, which the other Überwaldean ethnicity calls the _Lipschitz._ I ask you. It means the river passing through the town of Lipwicznya, which the Fritzes call _Lipwig_ , which has a sharp elbow-bend in it, which Fritz calls a _schitz._ And in the older tongue _, Urinal_ means _"attractively formed lofty mountain crowned in cloud",_ or _"currently accepted border of the ancestral lands of the Kazakh peoples"._ But the Morporkians do not hear this.

Xenia Galina nodded, thoughtfully.

"Ah." she said. "Morporkians. _Nie kulturny, da_?" **(9)**

" _Da."_ Olga agreed. They watched the river together. Olga marvelled at how quickly, on what was a sort of holiday for her, using up accumulated leave, she was becoming a Rus again. A boat was moving past, oars dipping and flashing. From somewhere came a dolorous chant.

 _Эй, ухнем!_

 _Эй, ухнем!_

 _Ещё разик, ещё да раз!_

The two women watched it. Probably a trading vessel moving between ports.

 _Ey, ukhnyem!_

 _Ey, ukhnyem!_

 _Yeshcho razik, yeshcho da raz!_

"An old boatman's song." Xenia explained. Then the riders returned. Twenty-odd very tiny Cossacks, mounted on the small shaggy Steppe ponies, children being taught to ride. Two of them, who had their mother's auburn-red hair, stood out. Olga felt a pride in them. They could ride straight and sit a horse straight and ride every bit as well as Cossack children their age. But then, they were Boer on their father's side, from another race who were practically born to horses. And unusually for a Wizard, Eddie could ride well. This had surprised Olga. It should not have done, she reflected. He comes from the same country and background as the Smith-Rhodes family.

"The children will be safe here." Xenia said.

"I thank you." Olga said, politely. Vassily and Valentina would be in her care for the next two months, learning how to be Cossacks, getting a crash-course in being Rus. They'd need to be in their other home in a couple of months, to become Vondalaanders again and start school. But two months here with a foster-mother who was fond of them would be a good start. And one who was _shamanskaya_ to her people and could also deal with any magic that manifested. Also a consideration.

Members of – and Olga winced, sensing how a typical Ankh-Morporkian would react to this – the Horde of the Vulga Cossacks. The Vulga Horde.

 _Look, brat, it's a river. The River Vulga. Why is that hard for you to grasp?_

Olga Romanoff sighed, and watched the river.

 _ **Spion Kop Barracks, New Ankh, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Getting mail was always a little morale-booster. Bekki saved letters for the evening. She and Sophie Rawlinson got special leave twice a day to feed and groom their Pegasii, who were stabled at the Air Station. It meant things like saluting Commander Vimes, Captain Carrot and Captain von Überwald and calling them "sir" or "ma'am", but they got to see their horses. Who were practically adult now, ten or eleven months after birth.

They would soon be fitting saddles. And flying. Their instructions were not to rush this. Sergeant von Strafenburg, who was okay underneath her austere exterior, had said her instructions were that Captain Romanoff and Lieutenant Politek – two more people they had to call "ma'am" here – would supervise this personally, taking Bekki and Sophie one-to-one in the last, critical, stage of becoming Pegasus Service pilots. And the Captain was currently on leave, doing necessary family things in Far Überwald. From what she'd heard, _very_ Far Überwald.

But with grooming and feeding over and not expected back in Barracks for a while, it was a good time to read letters.

Bekki sat in the hayloft and opened and read letters from Howondaland.

 _Dear Rebecka._

 _To my shame, this is possibly the first time I have said hello to you… My name is Chloe and I married your Godsfather, Julian Smith-Rhodes…_

Bekki read on. Chloe hoped they could become friends and she'd really love to meet her properly, and she just _knew_ her husband Julian would be delighted to see her again. Mariella tells me you are coming to Howondaland later in the year. Why don't you come to see us?

Bekki focused. She was a witch. She knew there were spill words that people very carefully failed to articulate in spoken conversation, but which a witch could hear clearly. If she focused. And right now, she was realising there were spill-words in written letters too. She studied the paper and the writing on it and tried to look at it the right way and read what had been in Chloe's mind when she wrote it. After a while, answers formed in her mind.

She'd have to give some thought to the reply. How to say to Chloe:

 _Your first child is going to be a girl. And yes, my Aunt Mariella is right to suggest a Lancre-trained witch nearby might be useful when the time comes. I can see you're worried about yours and Julian's first baby…_

She discussed this with Sophie.

Then after a while they went to find their broomsticks and to return to the Barracks. Tomorrow morning was going to be an introduction to the basic principles of Law that the watchman needed to know. (10)

 _ **To be continued**_

 _ **Hoping to wrap up Book One of**_ **Strandpiel** _ **with at most one more chapter, having set up lots of threads to pick up in Book Two….**_

 **(1)** Another road trip yet to be written. How Olga and Irena made it to Lancre via Ankh-Morpork and other interesting places. Like many Russian girls, getting out there and seeing the world.

 **(2)** Callback to _**Bungle In The Jungle.**_

 **(3)** Vetinari also trusted that the eventual Grand Duke Vassily would grow up as a friend and sympathetic ally of Ankh-Morpork. He understood that if Grand Duke Vassily grew up to remember a happy childhood at least partially spent in Ankh-Morpork, he would then be more inclined to be a friend of the City. "And now, Captain Romanoff, could I prevail upon you for your private thoughts concerning this idea of a Greater Kneck Economic and Cultural Co-operation Zone? **(3.1)** The provocative idea is certainly compelling, and grabs the imagination. Of the coming together of Far Überwald, Zlobenia, Mouldavia, the Hubwards Acerian Steppe, and those parts of Borogravia, Skund, Upper Klatchistan and even Muntab where the Rus people are to be found and where the Rus language and culture constitutes a majority, or even a significant minority. I concede in the long run that a united Federation of these peoples under one de facto jurisdiction has advantages, but in the short term, there would be disruption, strife, uncertainty and upheaval. Not least among the cartographers who would feel obliged to re-draw all the atlases, and to go to the expense of scrapping the old outmoded versions and publishing updated and revised editions. I also hear there are informal contenders for the long-dormant position of Tsar, _Father Of All The Ruskiya_?"

 **(3.1)** This is canonical: the _**Compleat Discworld Atlas**_ notes the idea of a group of nations and regions in the general Far Überwaldean area coming together in a cultural and economic union based on shared language, culture, society, et c, which is described in terms of a sort of, er, Russian Federation, with overtones of the old USSR, depending what political philosophy eventually prevails…

 **(4)** as it wasn't an official contract, and as the two henchmen (both men with bad reputations) had been killed in self-defence when they raised spears to a black-clad night visitor who had unaccountably allowed themselves to be seen, the receipt had not been signed. Mariella had paid a couple of hundred dollars to the Guild's widows and orphans fund afterwards. Little things like this are understood, and the Guild saw this as charitable pro-bono work and good public relations. Two Guild members living in the Bitterfontein area both had unbreakable alibis on the night, which the police accepted. The former Headman left, after a parcel of travel passes and documents were delivered to him the next morning. He would start a new life in the Transvaal where the local _baas_ was Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes. Who had been primed by his daughter as to what to expect. Mariella had seen what prisons were like for black people. She preferred _other_ methods of administering justice where it was needed.

 **(5)** And no Assassin ever likes to go _completely_ without weapons. Some habits of thought are ingrained.

 **(6** ) In Afrikaans, _onverdraagsaam_ is a word for intolerance or small-mindedness. I'm not sure if it works, but I'm going for a punning name here. Hope it works!

 **(7)** A lot of people had this reaction to Mariella. She was good at things like this.

 **(8)** Really true. Fought on January 23-24, 1900. The British commander (the Rust-like General Redvers-Buller) decided it was imperative to capture and hold the highest ground. Only mist, fog and bad recce prevented him from realising there were higher hills still on either side. The British army found out the hard way that the Boers held all three and had clear fields of fire from three directions. It was such a traumatic memory that even today, the high steep terraces at many British football grounds are called "kops", and another Afrikaans word found its way into English. A surprising amount of Afrikaans re-entered English after the Boer War. The British Army, by the way, tends to name its barracks after glorious defeats. Nobody really knows why.

 **(9)** apparently " _nie kulturny_ " is a killing insult when used by an educated and cultivated Russian, implying that the offending person is not only uneducated and uncivilised, they lack the capacity or intellectual competence to become a worthwhile member of society. "Uncultured" is only the half of it.

 **(10)** This summed up as _You're nicked, chummy, and this is why…._

 _ **Notes Dump:**_

 **Russian** _ **: words for "shamaness" and "witch" =**_ _ **шаманка ведьма**_ _ **(**_ _ **shamanskaya ved'ma)**_

 _ **Or else**_ _ **шаманство, ведьма**_ _ **(**_ _ **shamanstvo, ved'ma)**_

 _ **An experiment. Struck by how an image search on any subject you like, however unlikely, will start throwing up pornographic images sooner or later. I wanted images of "sharpie pens" and… well, discretion dictates. Just felt-tipped artist's pens. How the hells do you go from "Sharpie pen" to… well. There is Sharpie porn out there. You may not be looking for it but you get it. Felt-tipped pens. That you write and draw with. You would not believe it. So I started throwing random girls' names - just a single name, with no extra text, for goodness' sake - into a search engine and counting the images until the point where the first suspect pictures appeared. So far:**_

 _ **Anne – image 51**_

 _ **Ann – Image 22.**_

 _ **Alison – image 5 (!)**_

 _ **Harriet – 43**_

 _ **Agatha – 39**_

 _ **Agnetha – 117 (OK: realised "Agnetha" is cognate with the blonde one in Abba, so bad choice)**_

 _ **Ruth – 11 (seventeenth century nude painting came in at 8)**_

 _ **Johanna – 147 (although for some reason most of the images thrown up are bikini or underwear shots… still trying to work that one out)**_

 _ **Alice – 53…**_


	53. Ontdekking – Discovery (открытие)

_**Strandpiel 53**_

 _ **Ontdekking – Discovery (**_ _открытие_ _)_

 _ **Advancing the story to the point where a natural break will occur, Book One can close, and Book Two will deal with Bekki's life in Howondaland. So closing all the closeable loose ends – for now.**_

 _ **To cover: events in Howondaland**_

 _ **(Ruth N; the van der Graafs; Mariella and Horst)**_

 _ **Olga and Eddie and kids on extended holiday on the River Vulga**_

 _ **Summer music practice**_

 _ **Bekki in the Watch and training for the Pegasus Service**_

 _ **First long-haul solo flight**_

 _ **End of Book One! Hopefully within this chapter. And Gods know, I've said that before…**_

 _ **Most of the Russian phrases used here are mechanical translations via Google Translate. I have cross-referenced and used intuition and more research (Russian magical traditions) to double-check them where I can – a degree in linguistics has to count for something – but if any Russian readers can suggest better – love to hear from you!**_

 _ **Hoping to wrap up Book One of**_ **Strandpiel** _ **with at most one more chapter, having set up lots of threads to pick up in Book Two…. This is now the 0.4 version, with minor corrections, revisions, and amendments. Especially one suggested by reader CarrieVS, who deplored the fact I missed the bit in The Reply Of The Zaporozhnian Cossack Horde concerning hedgehogs. Duly corrected. I will beat myself with a knout for missing that, first time. Thank you, CarrieVS.  
**_

 _ **Also. Long-standing British soap opera "Coronation Street", something of an institution on British TV and arguably the longest continually-running TV soap in the world, introduced a south African connection tonight... the unseen mother of a beloved character apparently fled there after giving up for adoption the cjild who later became Tyrone the mechanic. She went to... Pietermauritzberg in Natal Province. Better known as Piemberg. Has the scriptwriter read Tom Sharpe - or maybe even me? This is the sort of thing that creates great chuffedness...**_

* * *

 _ **At Astrakhan Oblast, on the River Vulga – Matushka**_

The Vulga Horde was pretty much nomadic, like most Cossack hosts, although it had a few pretty much permanent settlements spread along its accepted range up and down both banks of the river. Some Cossacks were even boatmen, ferrying people and horses across the river and acting as a trading link to the towns and small cities along its length.

The Host generally went where its herds chose to graze. At this time of the year their course took them near to the walled town, almost a small city, of Astrakhan **(1).** Its high and turreted wooden walls and stout gates were there partly because of Cossacks. In former times the Kazakh peoples had had a reputation akin to the D'Regs in Klatch and the Apaches in central-turnwise Howondaland, and for pretty much the same reasons. The Vulga Horde could still do this kind of thing if they needed or wanted to, but these days they had seen the value of trading and commerce as opposed, say, to riding in, laying waste, and taking what they wanted. The problem with that approach was that you could only do it _once_ , as it took ages for the people you'd just cheerfully been laying waste to and plundering to recover, to the point where a second visit was worth the effort.

Even so, the river-port city of Astrakhan had high solid walls, a well-trained militia with plenty of long pikes and crossbows, a system of wide defensive moats, and a thriving metal-working industry that made lots of caltrops, for instance. Old memories die hard.

Olga Romanoff rode with the Host, accompanying her friend and fellow Witch Xenia Galina. With his wings folded back, her Pegasus stallion was happy to ambulate at ground level in the normal manner, like any other horse, and seemed happy and excited in the presence of so many other equines. Lord Vetinari had given permission for her Pegasus to accompany her here. Nobody other than the bonded Witch could ride one, so trying to steal him would be futile. And she'd satisfied Vetinari's other stipulation; her stallion had a carefully regulated amount of a certain herbal preparation mixed into his feed. He would not be tempted to take an interest in any mares whilst here. Olga knew the need for this: Vetinari didn't want any other nation getting its own Pegasus. Her mount had, therefore, been gelded, at least temporarily.

She regarded the high walls. The fact they were made of wood – stone was in short supply here and hard to get – didn't make it any less formidable as an obstacle. She reflected that this far Hubwards, they were in border country. The Theocracy of Muntab claimed this land as part of its divinely ordained Imperium. Muntab proper was a couple of hundred miles Hubwards. A former Theocrat had sent the Ataman of the Kazakhs a peremptory letter to tell them they were now subjects of the Theocracy and he expected the little issues of accepting Muntabian sovereignty, and consequent payment of taxation, to begin promptly.

The Ataman and his council of lesser Hetmans had heard the delegation out with silent courtesy, respecting them as an Embassy, and had gone away to discuss the issue and prepare a response. Vodka had been called for. They had written and sealed a letter of response, advising the Muntabian emissary, with inscrutable solemnity, to deliver it promptly and unopened into the hand of their Theocrat.

It had essentially invited the Theocrat to go and eat _govno_ , perform an unedifying intimate action with a pig, and to kiss the collective backside of the Kazakh nation. In several pages of inventive and graphic insult, with no profanity repeated twice. The Theocrat had also been invited to contemplate the humble hedgehog, specifically the reason why it can be found ambling along at ground level without a care in the world. Specifically, he had been invited to lower his backside onto one without benefit of protective clothing or indeed any garment on his lower body. **(2)**

The Muntabians had promptly invaded, and found themselves trying to punch fog. Fast-moving fog with a lot of sabres and lances in it. After the remains of their Army retreated home, they had not seriously tried again. A survivor of that Army had said that given the sheer number of sharp pointy things coming at them, very very quickly and definitively, it was indeed like sitting bare-arsed on a hedgehog. But they still claimed the Kazakh lands. Places like Astrakhan remained fortified just in case the Muntabians tried it on again.

Olga regarded the onion-shaped spires of the town and felt at home. Only the churches and temples had been able to afford to have stone shipped here to build. She wondered about the priorities of a people who used the stone to build temples and had to be content with wood to build defences, with a powerful potential enemy about a fortnight's march away. She shook her head and turned to Xenia, who had been explaining her position in the Horde.

A Witch, yes, by anyone's standards: a healer, a dealer, a midwife at one end of life and a sort of undertaker at the other, one who arbitrated disagreements, a woman who expected and got Respect. That was universal. It defined a Witch. Anywhere.

But Xenia was also a _**shamanskaya.**_ Back at the Witch Trials, she had received the instant and unforced witch bow from both Tiffany Aching and Nanny Ogg, recognition of her status and a welcome to the community of Witches. Olga and Irena had interpreted the discussion that followed.

Nanny Ogg had seen the other thing straight away.

" _Mainly_ Witch. And I'm just bettin' you're a bloody good one, too. But your other foot's in Priestessin'. You has the look of one who has to deal with the Gods, bunch of bloody useless buggers."

Olga had translated _useless_ _bloody buggers_ into the closest equivalent. Xenia had burst out laughing.

" _Da, Babiuschka_ Ogg. Our Gods are indeed _bydlo_ and _svolochii._ This I should know." **(3)**

The conversation had continued between Olga and Xenia. Xenia explained there were four Gods of the Shaman. She had encountered and interacted with three of them: _Топацьи, Скелде,_ and _Умчеррел_ , but not the most elusive of them all, the one called _Багаж_. **(4)**

"And how do you find your Gods?" Olga had asked, politely. Xenia shrugged.

" _Sometimes_ useful." she said. "But normally bloody useless."

They rode on together. Olga reflected she'd have to fly back to Ankh-Morpork soon. But there was no immediate rush. She took a deep breath and steeled herself to the fact she'd be leaving her children here. _They're both keen to stay_ , she reminded herself. _They love it here. And the Cossacks love their children. They are safe. They adore Xenia._ Again she wondered if it was too early for this sort of separation. But Vassily needed to learn about his mother's country _. His country too. and this was a good place to start. He is to become Grand Duke and rule a Duchy. He must learn of the people he will be Grand Duke to. And Valla has magic, more strongly than her brother. A witch as foster-mother for a month or two will be good for her. Besides, I have two new Pegasus pilots to deliver advanced training to. That's important. It needs my full attention. Hanna's in charge right now. She's a Fritz. Which means she can be relied on to keep the place running like clockwork. And on time to the very second._

They rode on together, Olga learning more about Shamanism.

 _ **Spion Kop Barracks, Ankh-Morpork**_

Wee Mad Arthur had the rank of Watch Sergeant. Barely six inches tall, big for a Feegle, his role in the Watch was to be the leading rank among those Feegle and Gnomes who worked, in one capacity or other, as part of the loose Watch family. There weren't many: the majority of them worked for the Pegasus Service and each was affiliated to one Witch, acting as her Navigator and craw-stepper on long-haul flights. Once a female Feegle, surplus to requirements for now, had been released by her Kelda mother to go out and see the world before returning to the Nac Mac Feegle to marry and found a Clan. She had become a Watchwoman, part of the family of inter-species misfits who found a home there. Sam Vimes had appreciated her wit, and ability, and her knack for getting on with people of all shapes and sizes and species. What he hadn't appreciated was that she had been obliged to bring a retinue with her, an escort of brothers sworn to guard and protect her. This had caused an _administrative difficulty_ , leading to Wee Mad Arthur and Buggy Swires, the other senior Little Person in the Watch, having to knock some sense into them at regular intervals.

Vimes had been genuinely sorry to lose Kirsty when her time was up, but at least when she emigrated to Howondaland to found a Clan there, the first Feegle to leave the Central Continent, the "auxiliary Watchmen" she'd brought with her had left too. One or two had remained, with the Air Police, to pilot the birds of prey and ravens the Watch used as additional patrol vehicles. This put them under the direct supervision of the Air Witches, and Incidents were now few and far between.

These days, Sergeant Wee Mad Arthur was ranking NCO among the fifteen Feegle who were the pool of Flight Navigators for the Pegasus Service. Who were now about to become seventeen.

He took his duties seriously, and was as near to a six-inch tall sergeant-major as you could find anywhere. With this task in mind, he'd navigated Olga Romanoff to the Far Steppes and the banks of the Vulga, excused himself, begged her leave, and craw-stepped himself back to the Yard to tend to this duty. He was due back in a couple of days to bring her, and her mount, back to the Air Station.

First, there was this…

He studied the two young Feegle who stood before him, in a human-sized classroom. He shook his head sorrowfully.

"Aye. Weel. I has a difficult task aheid o'me, I see." he remarked. He paused to let this sink in.

"I now has to take ye two wee bampots and sorry skulkers, and turn ye both intae Flight Navigators fit for the Service. Weel. Miracles may happen. But your Keldas nominated ye both, an' your Gonnagles think you are perhaps fit. And who am I tae gainsay a Kelda, or go agin the word of a Gonnagle?"

He scrutinised Wee Archie Aff The Midden closely. He scowled.

"The word with ye, laddie, is that ye are _directionally challenged_." he said. "That ye dinnae know your right frae your left, or your Widdershins frae your Turnwise."

He eyeballed Wee Archie.

"Weel. Here is where ye begin to learn. By the time you get aboard your mount wi' Miss Rebecka, the Hag who will trust ye tae get her there and tae lead her right. That is the sacred calling of the Navigator, and ye will _earn_ that rank. I hear ye couldnae navigate your way oot a paper bag even if somebody was haudin' it open for ye."

He indicated the walls of the classroom. They were covered with detailed maps of the Disc, with routes and destinations outlined in red or green or blue.

"Taxi-cab drivers in this City has tae learn what is called The Knowledge of this city, before they is allowed to take a cab oot on the streets."

His nod took in Shelpit Stevie, who the Lancre clan Kelda had asked Sophie to take as her Navigator. This too had been decided at the Witch Trials. "Well, laddies, you two is now gauntae learn The Knowledge of the _world_. All the routes. And ye will both become _perfect_ in them. And ye begins. Now."

It wasn't only Bekki and Sophie who were getting recruit training.

 _ **Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork**_

Bekki, sitting in the hayloft at the Air Station after her evening session of grooming Boetjie, was reading the latest letters from Howondaland.

 _If your instructors are complete dofs, it is tempting to find permissible ways of baiting them. Seven years at the Guild School gave me a lot of practice in this, and getting it right boosts your morale and provides satisfaction. Be advised, though. The cookhouse and canteen floors at Fort Rapier Barracks have a lot of surface area to cover, if you are one girl with a mop and a bucket. You may find yourself reflecting on whether it was truly worth it_ **.(5)**

Aunt Mariella had also enclosed newspaper clippings from Home. Bekki had shown them to Sophie and provided translation of the captions.

"So we made the papers in your country." Sophie had said, thoughtfully, looking at the iconograph picture of herself, Apricity and Bekki proudly showing off their medals. Sophie's picture also clearly showed off the Bees she had won in service of the Paramount Crown Princess of the Zulu Empire. She had worn them on the day as, well, the Witch Trials are the right occasion for this sort of thing, aren't they?

"it's the sort of thing they like." Bekki said. "Any sort of international contest where a Rimwards Howondalandian places with a medal. Or preferably _wins_."

Bekki felt anxious about the implications of this. Aunt Mariella had also written _I was perplexed as to how a gentleman called Oskar Verdraainer found out about you. When I realised all he had to do was to read the papers and realise a Smith-Rhodes is also a Witch – which you know is illegal in this liberally-minded Nation of ours – all became clear. The obnoxious Verdraainer will seek to interview you when you arrive here. We will need to make a plan. I have a few ideas._

"And the secret police have clipped that picture out of the morning paper and put it in your file. _Ouch_." Sophie said.

Bekki nodded. Then she paused. They weren't alone in the hayloft…

"Hei, Bekki." A voice said. She recognised the voice.

"Oh, hi, Ampie. Howzit?"

Then she added

"Errr… how did you get in here, if that's not a silly question? This place is well-guarded. And Commander Vimes would go _spare_ to see an Assassin in here."

Ampie grinned his usual wide lovely grin. Bekki realised she was absurdly happy to see him.

"You just answered your own question, I think. Look, I brought you a few things."

Ampie's bag was full of chocolate. Bars and small boxes.

"I wasn't sure what sort you like." he said, apologetically.

Bekki grabbed him and kissed him. It was spontaneous. _He's an Assassin student. He's just risked getting into the Watch headquarters and one of its best-guarded places. Just to bring me chocolate and he's gorgeous and he brought me chocolate and I think I love him…_

"Err.. shall I go and find something to do somewhere else for a while?" Sophie said. "Leave the two of you to it?"

Bekki tried hard to be sensible. It was difficult. She gathered herself.

"Look. Ampie. I really don't think your being here is a good idea. Commander Vimes has got some pretty definite ideas about Assassins being here. Especially places where the public can't go to. You could be in big trouble."

"I know. But I've missed you these last couple of weeks."

She kissed him again, impulsively. She'd missed him too.

"You'd risk getting into big trouble? For _me_?"

Ampie nodded. Then another voice said

"I hope it was worth it, Probationary Air Policewoman Smith-Rhodes. I could arrest the young man right now. And take him to the Commander. Who would not be a _happy_ Commander."

Bekki scrambled to her feet. Sergeant Hanna von Strafenberg was duty officer with the Air Police. She was Überwaldean and everything about her radiated the usual Überwaldean dedication to duty, order and efficiency. She was OK, in her way, but not one to go outside the rulebook, quoting _Befehl ist Befehl_ as justification. _Orders are orders_.

"And neither of the _Ivankas_ would be happy either." she said. "Fortunately one is on leave several thousand miles away and the other is off-duty tonight. Which, liebchen, leaves _me_ in charge." **(6)**

"Well, you hed better put me in hendcuffs, then." Ampie sighed, regretfully. "It was worth it, though."

Incredibly, Sergeant von Strafenberg smiled. Bekki reflected that she was a witch too. A Pegasus flyer. And she seemed amused.

"Tell me how you got in here." she invited Ampie. He shrugged.

"I rode up in the service lift. The one thet takes stuff down to ground level. I saw the Dwarfs et the bottom unload the stable waste for Herry King's boys to collect. They loaded hay bales to go up. Then went off for a cigarette. Some distance eway, leaving the lift unguarded. From my observations I knew the lift is on en automated mechanism thet stops et the top. End thet people et the top might leave it a while, before they unload. I hid myself between the hay bales end reasoned they would not look too closely when they sent en unattended load up, with no great sense of urgency concerning unloading it. When ettention was elsewhere, I got out end went to the stables, knowing I would find Rebecka here."

Hanna von Strafenberg nodded and considered this. Then she smiled. Bekki reflected that she was not unattractive and should be less serious and Überwaldean about things and should smile more. Let that meticulously plaited blonde hair down.

"Well, you had a few minutes with the young lady. I am not _completely_ unsympathetic to such things. You risked all this just to bring her chocolate?"

Ampie nodded.

Sergeant von Strafenberg looked thoughtful and made a decision.

"Have you a bar of Higgs and Meakin's Fruit and Nut in there? The one with the almonds and raisins?"

" _Ja, fraulein Feldwebel."_ Ampie said. He rummaged in the bag and found a bar. He hesitated, put it back, and brought out a larger bar. He offered it to Hanna.

She hesitated. Then took it.

"I prefer to consider this a perk of the job, and certainly not as a _bribe_." she said. Then she smiled, human and relaxed.

"Leave the way you came, _junge_." she said. "I am of the opinion that you came here not as an Assassin scouting us out, in which case I would have to arrest you and bring you before the Commander. Who does _not_ like Assassins in his Watch premises. You came here unofficially, to see the young lady. I understand such things. Even if the young ladies refer to me as _die Golem,_ thinking I have no more emotion than a thing of clay."

She studied the chocolate bar. And smiled again.

"You pointed out a gap in our security. The Dwarfs were negligient. I will mention this to the _Ivankas_ … to Captain Romanoff, when she returns from leave. Lieutenant Politek should also know."

She nodded to the exit.

"And if I have occasion to see Lord Downey. To mention to him, in passing, that one of his young men got in here unseen. You may get a glass of sherry out of it, perhaps. Now walk with me."

And they left, Bekki reflecting that the Golem wasn't as hardened as she thought, and actually had a heart…

Sophie nudged her.

"I saw some hazelnut milk chocolate in there." she said, hopefully. Bekki understood. She wasn't the only one to have been deprived of chocolate for over a month.

 _ **At Astrakhan Oblast, on the River Vulga–Matushka**_

Mother Vulga rolled sedately past. Olga Romanoff found the vista of rolling grassy plain leading to distant, barely-there, mountain peaks to be oddly hypnotic. And the nature of the Steppe was that there was a lot of horizon. Horizon was abundantly supplied. Horizon abounded. There was a suspicion of more distant peaks on another quarter, towards Muntab. In the opposite direction, smudges of darker green hinted that was where steppe began giving way to forest. And where she was looking, the Steppe seemed to go on. Forever. It was alluring. She could see why a certain sort of mind might want to get on a horse and ride. Forever.

Olga reminded herself she'd also seen it from a long way above. The endless steppe, in that direction, had an end, as it began getting hillier and more densely populated and farmed. There were higher hills becoming more mountains. After a while you came across real cities, built in stone, like Blondograd. Then the Bonk, the Kneck and the Lipczitsa, and beyond those rivers, places like Lipwig and Müning, where Fritz dominated. And beyond _that_ , a place where humans of all ethnicities dwelled but the dominant power was not human, but called Lady Margolotta. She'd flown this route often enough by Pegasus.

She sat back on the step of the caravan, and accepted a drink from Xenia.

"Spassibo."

They sat together and watched the sunset over in the widdershins **.(7)**

They listened to the sounds of life in the Cossack encampment subsiding with the sun, and looked out over caravans, tents and horse-herds. These stretched out for quite a way.

"The children sleep." Xenia said. "A young woman who is reliable is watching over them." Olga nodded appreciation. They watched the sunset over the horizon together.

"It has an attractive beauty." Olga said. Xenia considered this.

" _Da._ But after while people reach for vodka bottle. View not so great in January, for instance."

They discussed the four Gods of the Shaman, _Топацьи, Скелде,_ and _Умчеррел_ , and the most elusive of them all, the one called _Багаж_.

Then Xenia smiled.

You should have a little Vision Quest while you are here, I think."

Olga nodded assent and sat, outwardly impassive, whilst Xenia made preparations and gathered the herbs and accessories she would need. The twilight deepened into true night over the Steppe.

 _ **Ankh-Morpork.**_

Irena Politek had taken over the next stage of training the two new Pegasus pilots. She and Sergeant von Strafenberg had supervised Bekki and Sophie in the tricky procedure of fitting the special tack to their mounts, the tack that included, for the first time, _saddles._ And the adapted stirrups. These needed to avoid the wing root that didn't apply to a normally appointed horse. Sophie wondered about who had designed them.

The girls had then been detailed just to walk their mounts around the landing circle at the Air Station, to get Boetjie and Rosie used to the feel of the new unfamiliar leatherwork. All normal flying was suspended for the duration. This took priority. Most of the Air Police contingent turned out to watch.

It was a trudge, but Bekki appreciated being away from the bore of routine Watch training. It was agreed their Pegasus Service status took precedence.

After a couple of hours of this, the two recruit officers were sent over the road to the Lemonade Factory for some instruction in weapons use. Bekki, who had been trained by her mother and people like Alice Band and Auntie Emmie, sighed at some of the obvious gaps in the knowledge of their instructors. Aunt Mariella had warned her this was likely to happen, and that drawing attention to it was not a bright thing to do.

Bekki put up with it. At least the instruction on how to get handcuffs onto a person who did not _want_ to be handcuffed had been something new and interesting. She did not let on that her mother knew how to apply pressure _just so_ to somebody's arm and elbow, so that the limb became nerveless and limp for just long enough. Mum had explained how this was done and where to grip, and Bekki could do this, at least in theory. Mum said she was _not_ teaching this skill to Famke. Just in case. She guessed that applying skills taught by her mother to Assassins might be considered to be Watch brutality, or something.

 _ **At Astrakhan Oblast, on the River Vulga – Matushka**_

"This is the realm of _Топацьи,_ the spirit of the smoke."

Olga accepted this. It looked familiar. She focused on trying to stop the top of her head untwisting and spiralling off into the unknown. One minute, she and Xenia had been sitting cross-legged looking into a small fire. Three fully armed Cossacks had appeared, bowed respectfully to their Shamaness, and had deployed to stand guard. Apparently this was expected. Xenia had rolled a long fat _mahorka_ cigarette with intense care, added some herbs and resins, and after a while the two had shared it. Olga reflected that sometimes you _had_ to inhale. There was no getting around it. And then, there had been a feeling of dislocation, something _unravelling_ …

"I know this as Feegle Space" Olga said, her voice oddly distorted and echoing. She wondered why she was walking normally but there was no apparent ground under her feet. "We enter it on every Pegasus flight. The Feegle who navigates leaves our world, enters this one, then leaves it again in the correct place. That is as much as I know. They never divulge how _they_ know."

"Da." Xenia said. "Many years ago, on a quest into this realm, I saw white horse with wings, and woman riding. Little blue man sitting in mane saw me. He made magical sign with fingers. Like this."

Olga thought Xenia, who was maintaining an inscrutable poker face, had since worked out what the finger gesture had _meant_. She'd met Feegle in Lancre and must have been able to work it out by now. She smiled. Xenia added:

"I thought that was the God of the Smoke appearing to me. Usually he is little green man dressed in green with green hat. Smiles all the time. Not usually little blue man who scowls and shows me fingers of right hand. One who tricks. Joker god."

"The people of the widdershins, in Lancre, call him Hoki." Olga said.

Xenia nodded, seriously.

" _Da._ I thought white horse with wings ridden by woman, with blue man in mane, was the God appearing to me. Then, when I _meet_ such a woman, I realised it was vision of my future. _Топацьи_ spoke truly, that time. Most times he makes it all up, I suspect. You wonder why you bother."

They moved among the impossible geometries and the polygons with the wrong number of sides for some time. Olga wondered if she'd meet any of her Pegasus pilots in here. That would take some explaining. Then, by degrees, the alternative reality faded away and they were sitting by the fire again.

"The second God is _Скелде,_ the spirit of the mushroom." Xenia said. She smiled at Olga. "But perhaps for another night, _da_?"

Olga agreed. She felt her head was screwing itself back into place, slowly but surely. She sensed that if she thought about it a little bit, and came back to this place with Xenia to guide her, she might work out the secret of craw-stepping and be able to do it for herself. Eventually. She wondered if this was the God's message to her, and then reflected Xenia's warning that _Топацьи_ was a Trickster God and was to be approached with caution. They went to find their beds, eventually. Olga slept. The day after tomorrow she'd be back in Ankh-Morpork. To see Bekki and Sophie into the air on Pegasii. Some final training, and then they'd be Pegasus Service pilots. _Horosho._

 _ **The Ridings, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Irena and Hanna had taken Bekki and Sophie as pillion passengers across the City. Two riderless Pegasi flew on behind, on long leading reins. The destination had been one of the many riding schools on the Quirm side of the City, where the girls and their mounts had been led into one of the large indoor riding rings.

Bekki had a feeling this was going to be a life-changing moment. Godsmother Irena was brief in her instructions. They were to mount up when they each felt their horse was confident with the idea of taking a rider. They were _not_ to get airborne. That was why they were indoors. They were to ride their Pegasi conventionally, at ground level, in the training ring, so that mount and rider would get to know each other and become comfortable with each other. We'll be doing this for a couple of hours every day until Captain Romanoff returns from leave. She wants to be there when you go airborne for the first time. Then your advanced training begins. So, when you are ready. Mount up. And remember, _no flying._ And. Trainee Pilot Smith-Rhodes. I hope you remembered to save me some chocolate.

Bekki hoped she'd remember this moment when she was old. Her first time aboard Boetjie. Who was a good forgiving mount who seemed happy to have her there. Sophie seemed equally elated. They'd both been waiting for this for ages. The next step was to get airborne…

 _ **To be continued**_

 **(1)** It was named for its thriving textiles and tailoring industry, and its long fur-trimmed coats were famous around the Disc.

 **(2)** this really happened. When the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed IV claimed sovereignty over Russian Cossack lands in what later became the southern Ukraine, Ataman Ivan Sirko, leader of the Zaporozhian Host of the Dneiper Basin, sent back a very blunt and non-diplomatic answer packed with inventive profanity.

In the Discworld, there is a popular Cossack song of long antiquity, of the sort intoned after an evening of melancholic vodka-drinking, entitled _Невозможно содомизировать ежика, не получив проколотую задницу._ It's about hedgehogs. For people who can't read Cyrillic: _Nevozmozhno sodomizirovat' yezhika, ne poluchiv prokolotuyu zadnitsu_ (Note: Google Translate version. I can read Cyrillic and voice the words and I know a few stock phrases, but my Russian isn't great. As always, feel free to correct or suggest improvements.) _  
_

 **(3)** Firing blind here: I picked these two expressions from a list of Russian idioms as they seemed to get the general idea across, of a bunch of layabouts with a sense of entitlement sponging off everyone else. Again, could any Russian-speaking readers suggest better?

 **(4)** Refer to Terry Pratchett's _**The Light Fantastic**_ for an introduction to Discworld Shamanism. A female Shaman could reasonably be expected to have her head screwed on a little bit better. Even if in certain professional circumstances she might permit it to unwind a _little_ bit. Just far enough. Rincewind does encounter an elderly Shamaness in one of his travels. Who does appear to be more with it than her male counterparts. She might conceivably have been a great-grandmother of my Xenia, as she belonged to a "horse tribe" who took Cohen in as a fellow-traveller.

 **(5)** My tale _**Gap Year Adventures**_ covers Mariella's recruit training in the Army. Cookhouse floors and a mop come into it in one chapter.

 **(6)** the Pegasus Service and the Air Police were informal and very mildly military. Most of the time informality and first name terms applied. Olga off-handedly referred to her sergeant as _Fritz_ and accepted that she was equally off-handedly referred to as an _Ivanka._ When there's mutual respect, you can get away with, for instance, calling a Dwarf a _lawn-ornament_. It was better than _Nemetskiy,_ for instance _. Nemetskiy_ in Russian can also apparently cover Dutch people (also _gollandets_ ) , and by extension, Afrikaaners ( _Afrikande_ r).

 **(7)** The direction of sunrise and sunset on a planetary system consisting of Turtle, elephants, Disc, sun, moon and other celestial particles is not fixed. For us it's east. Something terminally drastic would have to happen for our sun to declare it might like to try rising in the west sometime, just for a change. On a world where the Disc is continually rotating on the shoulders of its elephants, one of which has to periodically cock a leg to allow the Sun to pass by… it is wise to assume that the point of sunrise and sunset can gradually rotate through all 360° in the course of a year.

 _ **Notes Dump:**_

 **Russian** _ **: words for "shamaness" and "witch" =**_ _ **шаманка ведьма**_ _ **(**_ _ **shamanskaya ved'ma)**_

 _ **Or else**_ _ **шаманство, ведьма**_ _ **(**_ _ **shamanstvo, ved'ma)**_

 _ **Current reading: Peter Conradi's "Who Lost Russia", a history and analysis of Russia since the end of the USSR. Very enlightening: some of the conclusions are suspect, but sympathetic to the idea that when viewed from Moscow and not Washington or London, and with Russian history in mind, the world is very, very, different. The idea we don't see in Western media very much: that Vladimir Putin is not a monster, a psycho, or a new Stalin. A rational and realist politician seeking to keep his country strong and stable and doing what he thinks is right for Russia: looking at the unfolding story and the issues from the Russian point of view is something we don't do, and when you ask the right questions, a lot of things become clearer. The imperative for Putin is "What's good for Russia and how can I achieve that?" Still leaves a few questions unanswered and some of the logic is puzzling, but it's a good start for understanding modern Russia, its political leadership, its preoccupations, and some of its decisions. Recommended.**_

 _ **The business over the Ukraine suddenly becomes a lot less clear-cut, for one thing: not simply, as we are led to believe in the West, a matter of "Ukraine = victim; Russia = aggressor." It's far more nuanced than that. Putin may have a little bit more right on his side than Americans and Brits are led to think.**_


	54. Kom ons maak 'n plan

_**Strandpiel 54**_

 _ **Kom ons maak 'n plan - let's make a plan**_

 _ **Still advancing the story to the point where a natural break will occur, Book One can close, and Book Two will deal with Bekki's life in Howondaland. So closing all the closeable loose ends – for now. V1.03 with minor corrections.  
**_

 _ **To cover: events in Howondaland**_

 _ **(Ruth N; the van der Graafs; Mariella and Horst)**_

 _ **Summer music practice**_

 _ **Bekki in the Watch and training for the Pegasus Service**_

 _ **First long-haul solo flight**_

 _ **End of Book One! Hopefully within this chapter. And Gods know, I've said that before…**_

 _ **Thank you to Brithund who made a blindingly obvious – to anybody else but me – plot suggestion. It has been incorporated here, with thanks.**_

 _ **Hoping to wrap up Book One of**_ **Strandpiel** _ **with at most one more chapter, having set up lots of threads to pick up in Book Two….**_

 _ **The Assassins' Guild, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork**_

"Sir, I em here. You wished to see me?"

Lord Downey looked up from the Master's desk. He smiled benevolently to the student who had entered, in the company of his Housemaster and Miss Band. The boy looked slightly nervous. Grune Nivor, a veteran teacher who had looked retirement in the face and decided some years before that age was just a number, was beaming with pride. Miss Band had a quiet look of satisfaction on her face as if something had happened that she could take great personal pleasure in.

Downey smiled. There was warmth in the smile.

"Of course. Mr duPris, I believe? One of Mr Nivor's young men from Viper House. Do you take dry or sweet sherry? Any preference as to vintage? Or region? This is a Loositanian from the principal sherry-making region of Toleda."

Ampie duPris thought quickly. Wines of the Disc was a course module taught by various teachers, each of whom had their preferences. It was held to be an indispensable social skill. He tried to match the colour in the decanter to what he'd been taught.

" Err… from the Xerez de la Frontera region, sir? The pale colour suggests en Emontillado, a dry wine. I believe the best current vintage is the Year of the Watchful Meerkat."

Downey nodded, appreciatively. He poured four glasses and offered them out.

"Close." he said. " _Amontillado palo,_ certainly. But from the Year of the Unconcerned Hedgehog. Please be seated, Mr duPris. Almond slice? Ah, very wise. Sherry should not be consumed with sweet cake. It dulls the flavour."

Ampie took the offered chair. Lord Downey again smiled benevolently.

"I received an informal report." he began. "From Sergeant von Strafenburg of the Air Police. Who, by the way, is a Grafin in Überwald, when she cares to acknowledge the title. The Watch does rather tend to attract titled people, oddly enough. You encounter them at social events, in this case a reception at the Überwaldean Embassy. She told me a rather interesting tale, strictly off the record."

He paused and looked quizzically at Ampie. Ampie glanced to one side. Miss Band was smiling slightly and Mr Nivor was beaming.

"Do you know." Downey said, conversationally. "Captain Romanoff swore very eloquently, and without repeating a profanity _once_ , in her own language. I am reliably iassured that when informed, Sir Samuel Vimes went completely spare, as the saying goes."

Ampie thought about this. Olga Romanoff was Bekki's immediate boss now. He hoped he hadn't landed her in any trouble. He also reflected that it would be best to keep well out of the way of Stoneface Vimes, at least until he had calmed down a bit. And certainly not to end up in Watch custody for any reason, where recent events might be held against him. Ampie had also met Olga, a red-haired Witch with an interesting way with a Cossack sabre. He vowed to be a good citizen.

And Alice Band was grinning, now. Definitely amused.

"Bekki's not in any trouble, if that's worrying you." Miss Band said. "I spoke to Olga Romanoff. She agreed that what happened wasn't _her_ doing, and she wasn't to be blamed for it."

"Indeed." Downey said. "You went to a lot of trouble for her. You managed to break into Pseudopolis Yard. You gained access to one of the most high-security parts of the building. Without being detected. And this is a building where Commander Vimes has personally promised seven different and highly inventive kinds of Hell on Disc to any Assassin found outside the publicly accessible parts of the premises without due cause. Knowing this, you got in. Undetected. Sergeant von Strafenburg tells me she only discovered you by pure chance, when she went to check on the two recruit pilots who had been assigned stable duties. So there is every chance you might have got out again. Undetected."

Downey offered Ampie his right hand. Ampie took it.

"The Grafin von Strafenburg says that what saved you from arrest was that you were not there as an Assassin. She considered leniency was called for, and she escorted you off the premises. So. You braved arrest and an unpleasant interview with Sir Samuel. Just to give a young lady chocolate?"

"That's a good enough reason, to me." Alice Band said. "She's lucky to have you. Her mother thinks so, too. Doctor Smith-Rhodes was impressed and pleased. And Johanna does not impress easily, let me tell you."

"Brownie points with the Smith-Rhodes family." Mr Nivor said. "And a damn fine application of Assassin skills. A man in black, stealthily entering a well-guarded place, possibly the best guarded place in this City outside the Patrician's Palace. And all because the lady loves…"

"Chocolate." Alice Band completed the sentence. "And you bribed Hanna von Strafenburg to let you out, I hear. With chocolate. That's a touch of _genius_ , Mr duPris."

"Indeed." Downey agreed. Something about his manner said that while Ampie's actions had been illegal and could have embarrassed the Guild had things gone wrong, the person most embarrassed was Sam Vimes. And Downey had no objections at all to that. "I did have occasion to speak to Lady Sybil Ramkin, by the way. She confirmed her husband needed some calming down at, and I quote, "bloody Assassins just walking in as if they owned the bloody place". But fortunately, Lady Sybil considers it was all rather sweet and romantic, and she wishes in _her_ day she'd met a young man who would do a thing like that just to bring her chocolate. She said she'd talk to Sam and get him to see it's quite sweet and harmless. She's quite taken with you, I think."

More sherry was poured. Ampie blinked. Usually you only got _one_ glass.

"Now. Would you care to describe how you did it? And I'd quite like you to prepare a written report, if you'd be so kind. To be attached to the relevant files."

 _ **Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork**_

Sam Vimes considered the two new Watch recruits standing on the opposite side of the desk. Their supervisory Captain and Sergeant stood to either side of them. He shook his head slightly. Usually these interviews were brief and necessary: he liked to get an idea as to the potential and the character of new people, or at least an opportunity to get to remember their names and relate them to the right faces. Every recruit got five minutes of face-time with the Commander. He studied them intently. One he already knew. Her mother had been a Special before she'd stood aside from the job to start a family. Vimes was quite keen to get her back, when she was ready.

 _For now, I get the reason why she stood down. Let's see how good the girl is._

"Sixteen is young to start Watchmen off." he said, opening the conversation. "Normally the minimum entry age is eighteen. But it's not a hard and fast rule. And the Pegasus Service is a special case. I started Nottie Garlick off at fifteen, and she turned out right."

He nodded at Olga Romanoff.

"Witches tend to be prematurely mature. But you select for that. As well as useful things like depth of character and a commanding personality. Useful Watch skills. And you'll only occasionally be performing conventional policing jobs. But you will still, however, need to put in time on the beat. Just so you know what the job means, and so we can be sure you're up to it."

He looked at Sophie Rawlinson.

"Same school as Sybil. At least till you were fourteen. Then you caught witchcraft. Advanced training in Lancre. A natural with horses. Your father, Sir Henry Rawlinson, is village squire out in the Shires, place called Rawlinson's End. Where he leads a busy life managing an estate and acting as a combination of local magistrate and Chief Beadle. Not only does your father command what passes as a local Watch, he passes judgement in court, too."

Vimes studied Sophie.

"Normally, one huge clash of interests. Lord of the Manor, arresting officer, _and_ judge. Lots of potential for abuse of power. Dealt with something like that in the Shires once **(1).** But from the background checks, I hear your father juggles the three hats quite well and he's well thought of. Well. Two hats and a wig, anyway. Which from my point of view, young lady, means you've already got a good idea of the job from being around your dad."

He nodded to Sophie, seeing a girl taller and wider than most. He also saw somebody who suggested a sixteen-year-old version of Sybil, and reflected in that case, she'd probably do alright on the streets. She'd taken charge of the women recruits' barrack-room, Vimes had heard, and women twice her age were looking to Sophie for a lead. _A natural commanding presence combined with having lived in a dorm at the Quirm Academy, so she knows what's needed._ Then he turned to the other recruit.

"And we have Probationary Air Policewoman Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons." he remarked.

"Just Smith-Rhodes, Mr Vimes." Olga said. "A witch always takes her mother's name. Professor Stibbons understands this, and is accepting."

Vimes, very carefully, didn't ask why in that case Olga had remained a Romanoff and Hanna was still a von Strafenburg. Willikins had patiently tried to explain it to him. **(2)** He nodded acknowledgement.

"I first met you when you were around eleven or twelve, young lady. You ordered me to stub my cigar out, as I recall."

Bekki looked at the lit cigar in the ashtray, and remembered. Sophie stifled a giggle.

"Yes, sir, I did." she admitted. "But this is _your_ space, sir. Wouldn't dream of doing it in here."

"Glad to hear it." Vimes said. "But you'd _still_ tell me to put it out if I came down to the witches' surgery, even though you're a recruit and I'm the Watch Commander?"

Bekki recognised a test.

"Yes, sir. I _would_." she said, firmly. "I'd still do your feet afterwards, though."

Vimes laughed.

"You'll do well on the street with an attitude like that." he remarked. " _Probably_." Then he was serious again.

"Olga… _Captain Romanoff_ – tells me you've both been in the air on your Pegasuses. Pegasii. Wingèd horses, anyway. Any issues, Olga?"

Olga looked proud. First flight had been a moment they'd all been eagerly waiting for.

"No, sir. I believe I have two first-class pilots. The next stage, when their navigators pass out of their own flight school and Senior Sergeant Wee Mad Arthur assesses them as fit, is for them to shadow an experienced pilot on one of the runs. I propose that Sophie accompanies me on the Howondaland route, and Bekki goes with Sergeant von Strafenburg to Überwald and the Hub."

"Why not take Probationary Air Policewoman Smith-Rhodes to Howondaland?" Vimes asked. "It's her country. Well, _one_ bit of it is."

Olga shook her head.

"Politics, sir. Certain realities. Lord Vetinari believes any Pegasus pilot should go _anywhere_ on City business. You emphasise that any Watch officer _should_ go anywhere. But Howondaland includes the Zulu Empire. His lordship has asked me to be mindful of the fact the Smith-Rhodes family is not very welcome in certain Howondalandian nations, and has asked me to avoid being un-necessarily provocative. So for now, Rebecka will fly other routes."

Bekki sighed. She accepted that she wasn't likely to be seeing Ruth N'Kweze and her little boy any time soon. Shame. Even though Ruth had guardedly said that she accepted Vetinari had a right to send whoever he chose as a Pegasus pilot, and she'd treat anyone with the accepted courtesy - even if in other circumstances it might cause a little diplomatic incident. It had sounded like a carefully-worded invitation. _But Ruth has her father to answer to,_ Bekki reflected. _And Mum and Aunt Mariella aren't exactly welcome there._

"Okay. I'll accept that." Vimes said. "But in the meantime. You two need to know how to be Watchmen. You've done the _theory_. Now I propose to pair you up with experienced people, and you'll go out on street patrols. Just to get a little taster. Starting tonight."

He grinned at Bekki.

"And if anybody thinks enough of you to bring you a bar of chocolate." he said. "He can do it in his own damn time, yours too, and not on Watch premises. Or he's nicked, and you're on a charge _. Even if he offers one to your sergeant._ Which means _she's_ on a charge too. Understood? Good."

Bekki and Sophie were dismissed. Olga told them to go up to the Air Station and wait there. The door closed behind them. Vimes waited for a while. Then he picked up his cigar and took a drag.

"At least she didn't order me to stub it out." he remarked.

Olga shrugged.

"What? In here? She isn't reckless. Or _overconfident_."

Vimes caught the emphasis. He winced slightly.

"No. Her mother will have knocked that out of her. Along with all the informal training she was knocking _in_."

There was a pause.

"Are we still deducting her pay for the training dummy?" Hanna von Strafenburg asked.

Vimes winced. Olga grinned. Fred Colon had been delivering swords instruction in his usual haphazard way, dimly remembered from his own long-ago time as an Army recruit. Various recruits had been taking ineffectual pokes at the hanging dummy stuffed with straw. Bekki had learnt about swords from her mother and Auntie Emmie. One of the things she had learnt had been Care of Weapons. When she'd been issued a nearly-blunt blade from whatever the Watch armoury had to hand out, she had assured Colon she would look after it as if it was her own child. Later on, Bekki had spent two hours with an oiled whetstone, as Mum had taught her.

Then, with a sword re-sharpened to Assassin standards, she had demonstrated _other_ skills she had been taught. Aunt Mariella had done something similar to make a point to her own Swords instructor in the Army, she remembered.

Bekki had not been surprised to be told, after a long silence, to go and find a shovel and a broom and clear up the mess, Probationary Air Policewoman Smith-Rhodes. Bekki reflected this had also happened to Aunt Mariella.

Sergeant von Strafenburg had witnessed this, and had warmed to the girl.

"The male soldiers in the barracks give them no trouble. Now." Hanna added. Bad news travels fast. Incautious male soldiers had also met Sophie in a bad mood. Neither girl was harassed any more **.(3)**

Vimes smiled slightly.

"I'll discount it against the work she put in in sharpening that sword." he said. "And I believe she shared a lot of chocolate with the other women?"

Hanna von Strafenburg went completely poker-faced.

"I saw no reason to forbid this." she said. Hoping Vimes wouldn't make any pointed remarks about bars of Higgs and Meakins' Fruit and Nut.

Vimes grinned. Hanna was alright, under the external aura of Überwaldean efficiency and devotion to duty. She had a reputation among the Air Police pilots. Of being the methodically crazy one who would test-pilot _anything_ , any crazy idea the flight technomancers had knocked together in the research shed. The vertical take-off interceptor broom, for instance. After it had exploded ten thousand feet up, watchers on the ground had been sure there'd need to be an application to Widows and Orphans for funeral expenses, that is, if they could find any scattered bits to bury. Then they'd seen the parachute. Hanna had come down to land, saluted Olga, and said "Test pilot von Strafenburg begs to report the design requires more work, as it is unsatisfactory in its current state of development." And she had strolled away. **(4)** She had been promoted to Sergeant not long afterwards.

Vimes shook his head. The boy had got in, yes. And without anyone seeing. And he was a bloody Assassin. And Hanna had let him go, sympathising. And, he suspected, feeling a bit jealous of the girl for having an admirer who would _do_ such a crazy thing. Sybil had said that if she were young Rebecka, she, Sybil, would be feeling very happy indeed. So _romantic_ , Sam. I hope you can overlook this? Sympathy and envy appeared to be the unanimous reaction of every woman who had heard about it. Even, he suspected, Olga. And all because the lady loves a man who'd bring her chocolates **(5).** Damn. He really couldn't do much about it, without running the risk of looking like a humourless vindictive old git and getting more knocking copy in the _**Times**_. He would still put Ampie duPris on his list of Assassins To Watch, with his own file at the Cable Street Particulars. To be cross-referenced to the Smith-Rhodes family.

He moved to more pressing matters.

"Let's talk about the sort of experienced street patrol partner who can be relied on to look after those two girls, teach them a few skills, and keep them safe out there. I've got a few ideas…"

* * *

And now, Bekki and Sophie were in the air. Nottie Garlick was flying with them, keeping an eye out, observing for now as the two new girls steered their mounts. Bekki wanted to whoop with the exultation of it. It had been so easy… Boetjie had responded easily, knowing what both of them wanted to do, and she had felt the steady thumping of the unfolded wings on the air, the short gallop forward and the cessation of hoofbeats as the horse leapt off the edge of the roof… and they were here. Airborne, with the city underneath them. Nottie had said not to go too high or too far. Get a feel for it. Navigate by landmarks. You know the City from above, you've been over it on brooms often enough. And these horses need exercising even if you're not on a duty run. This has to be a daily routine now.

She spotted the marquee of the Fools' Guild, the faded and stained multicolour of the permanent circus, and next to it, the dark roofscape of the Assassins' Guild. And beyond that, the Patrician's Palace. There was a no-flying zone there. Pegasus and other pilots only landed there, or over-flew, by arrangement. There was another landing circle, a discreet one, marked out in the gardens.

Bekki felt the wind of the wings in her hair, and whooped.

 _ **The Thaumatalogical Park, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Professor Ponder Stibbons moved in the sterile parts of the research building. He had exchanged outer street clothes for a white lab coat and was wearing a white pointy hat. White cloth overshoes had been carefully fastened over his feet.

He looked down into the Hatchery. It was being carefully tended by student Wizards wearing the same white, and sterile gloves. Every so often, one reached down into the runs and picked up a young imp. The newly-hatched imps tended to squeak with alarm and evade, but were easily caught. The selected imps were transferred to travelling boxes and, when full, these were moved on to other parts of the building. It was long and low-roofed and had something in common with a chicken farm.

"Project 42, sir." The wizard said, above the chittering of young imps. Ponder nodded and assessed the selected imps. They looked back at him with a variety of curious or incurious eyes. But it wasn't vision that these imps were being bred for.

Ponder felt an insistent tugging at his sleeve. He looked down. A shorter wizard stood there, in a lab coat that was a little too long for her, and a sterile white pointy hat that she had to keep from falling over her eyes.

Let me see, Daddy." she said, insistently.

Older wizards had made disapproving noises and muttered things like "Eskarina Smith. All over again." Ponder had ignored this. It was, officially, Take Your Daughters To Work Day. And he thought something like this would be interesting to Ruth, especially given some of the ideas she was having.

Ruth scrutinised the imps with interest. She listened to them chittering.

"They've all got different voices, Daddy." she said. "Can they be taught to sing?"

Ponder smiled. She was getting the idea.

"It's called polyphonics, sweetheart." he said. "You've seen the older imps, the ones used in Disorganisers, who could only say " _bingley-bingley beep_ " in one musical note? Well, we're working to breed imps who can sing, actually sing, a wider range of notes."

" _Dee dee dee dum, dee dee dee dum, deedle-ee dee dee…"_ an imp sang, obligingly. Ruth listened, and frowned.

"Is that all they can do?" she asked.

"It's a big _all_." a student wizard said, defensively.

"Mr Nockyear here devised that one." Ponder said. "He's deservedly proud of it. Ruth, why don't I show you where we teach the selected imps what they need to know?"

Ruth was looking into a different pen.

"What are these imps for, Daddy?" she asked, interested. Ponder peered over the top of her head. Two forlorn-looking imps were sitting in there. They looked odder, somehow. Large chested, with big wide frog-like mouths.

"Oh, _those_." said Mr Nockyear, somewhat dismissively. "That's where we put the whittles, before we…ouch! You kicked me on the ankle, sir?"

"Those imps go to a different place." Ponder said, quickly. He wasn't sure how to break it to Ruth that sometimes you, er, got imps that failed Quality Control and some of the students here were weeding them out for _humane destruction_ and a return to the breeding vats. It was an aspect of imp-breeding that he, Ponder Stibbons, was feeling less and less comfortable with, knowing some of them, only a few, admittedly, but some, were getting something close to full sentience.

Ruth was singing to them. Just la-la'ing a theme, a simple theme, but the imps had picked up an interest and had scuttled to her. Then they started, as best they could, singing it back. In low bassy rumbles.

"That's why they're whittles, sir." Nockyear said. "All they can do are the low bass notes. No good for Disorganisers. That needs more treble voices."

Ruth turned to her father.

"Daddy, I like these imps. Can I keep them?"

Ponder squirmed slightly. He'd been here before. With a five-year old Bekki and two kittens. And he'd been powerless to say "no" then.

"Sweetheart, they're not pets…" he said.

Ruth looked up at him in a disconcertingly adult way.

"Neither is Grindguts." she said, practically. "I've got an _idea_ for these two."

Some time before, Ruth had visited Blert Wheeldown's guitar shop to explain her idea for an acoustic bass guitar, based on the standard six or twelve-string model but with only four strings. Two of which needed to be designed from scratch, or else cut down from strings for a cello or a double bass.

Mum and Bekki had accompanied her. Mr Wheeldown had listened with interest and studied some remarkably good sketches the little girl had made.

"Reckon we can do this." he said, his interest piqued. "And it might work. But it's going to be _bespoke_ , ma'am, a one-off, and bespoke don't come cheap."

"How much?" Mum had asked. Bekki had noticed her mother had her thoughtful face on, the one she went into when considering a business proposition, of the sort that might turn into a profit tomorrow for cash invested today. Ruth had wandered off, and was watching one of the apprentices at work, critically analysing what he was doing. The boy, a young lad of about fourteen, was visibly getting nervous.

"You need to make the sound-hole a little bit larger." Ruth said. "And the saddle's in the wrong place. It's going to make the strings too short for that length of fingerboard. Then you've got to think about how to angle the headstock. Unless you reshape the end of the fingerboard you're going to have problems."

"Excuse me, ma'am." Mr Wheeldown said. He went over to join the two. He studied the guitar the apprentice was working on, looked sharply at Ruth, then even more sharply at his apprentice.

"Well, blow me down. The young lady's _right_ , Fender. Luckily, you can put all those things right, before you ruin it."

He returned to Johanna, with a last disbelieving look at Ruth. She had picked up a tool from the workbench and was demonstrating to Fender how it should be used.

"She hes a room full of musical instruments thet she plays with." Johanna said. "She's dismentled and rebuilt most of them. She cen retune a harpsichord, too."

"Well, she designs a good guitar, by the look of these drawings." he said. "If she wants a Saturday job when she's older, ma'am. I'd be happy to take her."

"I'll bear thet in mind, Mr Wheeldown. Now If I edvence you two hundred dollars for your work on a new end unique musical instrument. Designed by my daughter, so thet it is her intellectual property, end we heve a clear interest, should you build to this design for sales to other people. But we cen discuss thet later, How soon, without rushing it, can it be completed?"

Ruth's attention was now on something else. She had discovered, in the jumble of part-finished guitars at the back of the workshop, something that was different. She extracted it with difficulty, surprised at its weight, and assessed it critically.

"Mr Wheeldown? How does _this_ guitar work?"

The guitar-maker smiled benevolently at her.

"Oh. They don't work, miss. That's the short answer. I'd almost forgot we had that. There was a craze for them sort of guitars, quite a few years back, before you was born. We made 'em, we warned people they din't work, but they still bought 'em. Look pretty, but as much use as a chocolate teapot."

Ruth pulled it into a playing position and tried to strum a few notes. They sounded dead. Tinny. Lifeless and flat.

"It's a solid block of wood." She said. "Shaped and polished and pretty. Really pretty. But it doesn't work. These aren't even _strings_. It needs to be hollow for the sound to have room to move."

"There was a lad who had one. It worked for him. Nobody could figure out how. And _everyone_ wanted one. In the end we just carved and sanded and painted them to look good. Like the original. And then that sort of music sort of died."

Ruth studied the alleged guitar. She looked more thoughtful than usual. Deep-down witch senses were clamouring for Bekki's attention.

"Maybe there _is_ a way to make it work." she said, putting it down. "I need to think about this."

The first bass guitar arrived a few weeks later. Bekki played it. It was slightly larger, deeper and fatter than a standard guitar. And it was designed to be played pizzicato.

"Something's still missing." Ruth had said.

"Maybe." Bekki replied, She had a sudden need to rush to the privy. **(6)** She could think about this later.

And now, in the present, the two new imps arrived in the household. Ruth showed them the bass guitar. She asked them to climb inside, through the sound-hole. Once they were settled, she started strumming a few notes, picking them out. After a while the two bass imps realised what was expected of them and they started sounding the notes back. The low insistent rumble of the amplified bass filled the music studio.

 _Imps that amplify the sound_ , Ruth thought. _Amplifying imps…_ She wondered what to call the imps. They needed names. She looked down at the carpet. Leominster. And the other looked like a…

She spoke to the imps.

"Leominster. Jack."

"Jack" said one imp, getting it back. The other had more problems.

Leom..in… lem'ster… Lemmy."

" _Lemmy_ will do." she said. Lemmy and Jack looked up at her from inside the sound-hole. Ruth was excited. She couldn't wait to show Bekki.

After a while new ideas filled her head. She went to find a sketch-pad.

 _ **Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork**_

"I'm pairing Sophie with Reg Shoe." Vimes said, decisively. "She's what you might call _bourgeoisie_. He isn't. Good for both of them. Rebecka can patrol with Visit. He's a good copper. He was her mother's patrol partner of preference."

"Let me see if we've got this right." Olga Romanoff said. "Reg and his politics. Alongside the daughter of a village squire. Then an Omnian who has in the past expressed old-time attitudes towards witches. Alongside a Witch. He's going to offer her a pamphlet, isn't he?"

"Good lesson for the new girls. You can't choose your patrol partner but you _depend_ on them. You have to get along regardless of any differences of opinion. It should be interesting to see how they rub along."

Olga sighed. She made a decision to mount a broomstick patrol of her own. Just to make sure. To keep an eye.

"Now. Have you shouted at any bloody Dwarfs yet? The sort who were loading and unloading the lift, bunked off for a sly smoke, and let a bloody Assassin hide in the hay bales?"

"No, sir. I have, however, frowned at them. I believe they are somewhat worried as to what I will say concerning events which occured here while I was on leave several thousand miles away. This is unsettling them, and they are currently working very hard and diligently. Especially in mattters of security."

Vimes stood up.

"Let's go up to the Air Station, Captain. You can do the shouting. I'll stand behind you and glower at them. Deal?"

 _ **To be continued. Again.**_

* * *

 **(1)** Refer to _ **Snuff**_ , by Terry Pratchett.

 **(2)** Willikins, with his innate sense of finely graduated social rank, had suggested it was down to "women of higher social rank being _constrained_ in these matters, sir. Even a witch cannot easily shrug off the fact she is daughter of a Grand Duke standing one level below the currently dormant rank of _Tsar,_ and I understand Captain Romanoff's mother was originally called Ekaterina Alexeyevnya-Petrovnichniya-Volovovnya of Novo Chechovinitnia, prior to her marriage to Grand Duke Nicholas Romanoff. And Sergeant von Strafenburg is the daughter of Konstanze von Mecklenburg und Lipswigschnitzel und Knickelbein von Bad Sauerstoff. Perhaps the rule that a witch invariably takes her mother's name is not as absolute as witches claim."

 **(3)** Sophie had turned to the grinning soldier who hadn't even had a chance to say anything along the lines of "I likes a girl with spirit". She had eyeballed him and said "You know, those coarse trousers they issue you must get uncomfortable. I'm just betting that the next time you're on the parade square and your drill-sergeant gives you the order to stand to attention, so that you cannot move a muscle, you're going to get very, very itchy. Where it itches most. Prickly itch. The sort you really have to scratch. Itch, itch, itch. And all the time you're going to be standing there, getting more and more uncomfortable. With the _itch_. And it's going to be a choice between scratching the itch. And having your sergeant come up to you and scream in your face from six inches away for having moved. Itch, itch, itch. Or just standing there and putting up with the uncontrollable prickly itch. Either way, you're in _trouble_. _Itch_." Sophie had not been bothered again.

 **(4)** Dwarf designers the Messers Schmidt had called it the ME-163 design prototype, the _Komet_. Lord Vetinari had asked for a design capable of getting very high, very quickly, to disrupt a formation of Klatchian flying carpets and if possible to knock them out of the sky. The Schmidts had proposed a turbocharged broomstick powering a shaped magical field that was powerful enough to rip through a formation of carpets like a hot knife through butter. They'd also proposed to equip it with an underslung heavy-bore automatic repeating crossbow so that on the downwards parabola it could take advantage of the scattered carpets and shoot a few down in the more conventional manner. As Hanna pointed out in her test report, they'd overpowered it and this had caused terminal strain on the handle and bristles. Leading to complete critical systems collapse with a high discharge of exothaumic energy. Assassins' Guild observer Johanna Smith-Rhodes had asked why bother to have a pilot at all? Any Klatchian invasion fleet would cover quite a lot of sky. Piloted brooms would be vulnerable to counter-fire from air-gunners and flight-wizards aboard the carpets. So why not have a battery of them that can be remotely fired, they do not have to be that accurate, think of them as a sort of ground-to-air missile? Take advantage of thefact it's going to explode? "In fect, I could edd a few exothermic elchemy cherges on a timed fuse… is there a way for it to explode when in proximity to a megical field, such es thet surrounding a magic carpet?"

 **(5)** When Higgs and Meakins heard about this, they used it in their advertising. The dark handsome man in black who braves any perils to deliver chocolates to his lady love. _**And all because the lady loves Higgs and Meakins' Milk Platter Assortment**_. **(5.1)** They also got Johanna Smith-Rhodes calling round and suggesting that the Guild of Assassins clearly had an interest here, so let's talk about _royalties_ , gentlemen.

 **(5.1)** The typical male Ankh-Morporkian take on this would inevitably be something like "What? Nip down the corner shop just because you fancy a bar of chocolate? At this bleedin' time of night? It's pissing down out there, girl!"

 **(6)** Think about it. Something that resonates in low bass frequencies. Held just there while you're playing it. Bass guitarist's incontinence.

 _ **Notes Dump:**_

 _ **Current reading:**_ **The Owl Killers** _ **by Karen Maitland. On the face of it, another of those books sparked off by Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael, a publishing sensation that got other publishers demanding to know why we don't have mediaeval murder mysteries on**_ _our_ _ **list, why aren't**_ **we** _ **getting some of that money? On the face of it, another 500 page potboiler. Nothing wrong with that, these are entertaining reading – bought it on holiday in South Wales.**_

 _ **But… a bit more than that. A repeated thing you hear from people of a New Age disposition is how much Christianity corrupted Britain and how much better it would have worked out if we'd somehow avoided this and kept the old, pure, native, pagan religion rather than something foreign forced on us from outside. Well… KM imagines a remote corner of England that remained pagan. A microcosm of what Britain might have been without Christianity. And guess what... it turns out to be every bit as rotten and corrupt and based on superstition enforced at the point of a sword. A useful antidote to New Age wishful thinking – and a damn good read.**_

 _ **Also got this fantasy which I can't see working in this tale – it opens up a sort of That's What I Call Soul Music Two, the follow-up to the hit album. Can't see Vetinari – or the Wizards – allowing this. Ponder would have to squash it. And it involves all three of his daughters. But the vision is… a "garage band". Especially with Ruth's ideas about guitars and what available Discworld technomancy can do to improve them. (I will deal with this in this story… but apart from Ponder's disquiet, leave it open-ended.) I see Ruth on keyboards. Bekki experimenting with the acoustic bass guitar "enhanced" by her sister. And of course the obligatory loony drummer… maybe with Alison the minstrel sitting in.**_

 _ **They are in the deliberately and diligently soundproofed studio their mother has commissioned at great and necessary expense, with bonuses paid to the Dwarfs for fast completion. Ruth is picking out a piano theme that begins as a sort of classical piece. Then it explodes into something sounding as fast and disquieting and urgent as a Watch siren. Bekki realises something is happening, and being a witch, it's happening to her. Strange and seemingly nonsensical words start emerging which are somehow right for the moment. Famke gets the idea and starts adding explosive drumming.**_

 _Slabheads down on Broadway are going crazy,_

 _They're laughing just like hungry wolves in the street!_

 _Watchmen are hiding behind the skirts of little girls_

 _Their eyes have turned the colour of frozen meat!_

 _No! no no no, no no, no, no no no no, no –_

 _Theda Withel has risen from the grave!_

 _ **There's a little conscious Bekki in there wondering what the Hell is going on – as far as she knows, Theda Withel is still alive and working as an actress – but the words have a momentum of their own.**_

 _Sekkian schoolgirls have thrown away their mascara_

 _They chain themselves to the axles of Rail Way trucks!_

 _The sky is filled with hurt and shivering angels –_

 _The fat lady laughs! Gentlemen! Start your trucks!_

 _ **("But I never wore mascara at school. The nuns would have made me clean it off. Mum would have shouted at me. And why should Agnes Nitt order girls from Seks to be dragged to their death underneath trains…")**_

 _ **That's one idea, anyway: the girls get inspiration particles that lead them to perform a version of the Blue Öyster Cult's rather stream-of-consciousness bad dream "Joan Crawford", rewritten for Ankh-Morpork… there's even some mad string playing in there, might be a viola, the sort of thing that Welsh bloke in the Velvet Underground (John Cale(7)) might have chucked into an experimental piece behind Lou Reed or Nico…**_

 _ **Anyway, the girls look at each other, are baffled, and ask where the hells THAT came from… then decide never to speak of this ever again, or something. An alternative version has Motörhead's title song "Motörhead" emerging out of nowhere, with Bekki, fired by the bass, suddenly channeling Lemmy… or else she might suddenly come over as Suzi Quatro, roaring out "Devilgate Drive" or "Can the Can", and thinking about the skin-tight black leathers she knows her mother keeps in the wardrobe, which fitted her when she was twenty-something, but which she can't**_ **quite** _ **fit into any more**_ **.(8)** _ **Bekki thinks**_ **she'd** _ **fit into them, and the idea suddenly becomes attractive…**_

 _ **Sunrise! Wrong side of another day!  
Agatea is six thousand miles away!  
Don't know how long I've been awake!  
Wound up in an amazing state!  
Can't get enough! Youu know its righteous stuff!  
Goes up like prices at hogswatch! **_

_**Motörhead!  
Remember me now Motörhead! **_

_**Alright!**_

 **(7)** Orchestral viola in a rock song? go to Velvet Underground's _**Venus in Furs"**_ and listen... Herr von Ubersetzer might have been moved to extreme technical criticism, but it works... Also, the original Hawkwind version of "Motorhead" - with Lemmy on vocals - also has some determinedly manic violin playing, with Hawkwind's resident violinist turning it into a rock instrument. i see bekki, overcome by temptation and curiosity, struggling into her mother's old working leathers in tasteful Assassin black, strolling down to the music room, picking up the bass with attendent imps - Lemmy says "suits you, miss" - and then the inspiration particle hits home and Music with Very Heavy Rocks In takes over... Famke goes with the flow and joins in, as does a visiting Alison.

 _ ** **(8)** **_Johanna wore them as accepted Assassin wear for certain specialised tasks; she is seen giving them an airing in my tale _**" _ **The Graduation Class**_ " , **_in which she has to navigate Ankh-Morpork's underground sewers. She'd have been middle-to-late twenties then: inevitable body changes after three daughters and nearly two decades later, she discovered they're too tight in certain areas and she keeps meaning to commission a new set suitable for a forty-something body,,but hasn't quite got round to it yet. But they're still in her wardrobe, a temptation to a daughter who ****could**** fit into them…


	55. Die Vuurvoël

_**Die Vuurvoël**_

 _ **v1.2, second revision. Adding more bits and what, in hindsight, is a fairly crucial epilogue.  
**_

 _ **Ideas:-**_

 _ **Letters from Howondaland**_

 _ **Suki, her family, and a prospective son in law.**_

 _ **Shauna's first job after leaving school**_

 _ **Bekki's Watch induction**_

 _ **Ruth and guitars**_

 _ **Famke and drums**_

 _ **Bekki's passing-out and introduction to the Air Police and Pegasus Service**_

 _ **Miss Glynnie's teaching speciality to Assassins on the Black. She isn't just a drummer.**_

 _ **Other cameos from Guild pupils (Hei Luci. Howzit?**_ _ **Ek het jou nie vergeet nie.**_ _ **)**_

 _ **Mysterious chocolate deliveries in Howondaland**_

 _ **Tidying up a few footnotes to the Witch Trials – Young Johanna and Emma speaking to Verence and Magrat, Xenia's reaction to the wider world of Witchcraft**_

 _ **Ankh-Morporkian law on property ownership – a callback to**_ **Thud!** _ **How far down does home ownership go? To tidy a loose end from the novel.**_

 _ **And just maybe, around December, Bekki emigrates to Howondaland and a new life is poised to begin… close and get round to Book Two. Eventually.**_

 _ **As always: during the working week, lots and lots and lots of inspiration particles about Things That Might Happen Next and how they could fit into the general plot, and no opportunity to write them down… putting the above laconics in so that when the opportunity comes, I can remember and expand and weave them in… one of which sparked off a train of thought that was interesting, absorbing, could end up as a story in its own right as Ponder Stibbons features a lot - and doesn't really belong here. Two or three sentences here could well be the condensed nucleus of four or thousand words somewhere else…**_

 _ **Hoping to wrap up Book One of**_ **Strandpiel** _ **with at most one more chapter, having set up lots of threads to pick up in Book Two….**_

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork, on a Saturday night in October**_

Johanna Smith-Rhodes paced the living room. Periodically she stopped and looked out of the window. Ponder Stibbons sighed, recognising her restlessness and the underlying anxiety. He got up, moved behind her and put his arms around her.

"I know what you're feeling." he said. "I feel a bit worried too. Who wouldn't be? But she'll be alright, you know. She really will be. Sir Samuel's given her a very good patrol partner. And this is something she has got to do on her own."

Johanna sighed, deeply.

"I know, Ponder." she said. "But I can't help worrying."

"You're her mother. Of course you're going to worry. But when you were a Special and you mustered a couple of times with the Watch every month. I remember you saying how much Visit drove you completely mad with the pamphlets and the religion and his attempts to convert you. I'm sure you irritated him too, when you pulled his arguments to pieces and argued for Science against Religion. But when it came to it, you never wanted a different patrol partner. You trusted each other, and you admitted he's a really good copper **."(1)**

Johanna nodded.

"And he probably thought the same about you. You knew he'd cover your back and wouldn't let you down. Well, then. Don't you think he'll do exactly the same for Rebecka? More so, because he remembers patrolling with you?"

Johanna relaxed. She also knew Ponder was right. Again she felt thankful he had this way of calming her when she got concerned about things. She conceded that you needed that in a husband.

Claude, a butler who knew exactly the right moment, chose to enter with a tray of hot drinks. He cleared his throat.

"If I may presume, my Lady, Miss Rebecka is probably extremely safe right now and will be exceedingly well guarded." he said, as he served. "As I understand from conversations with my mentor Mr Willikins, when we meet at the Guild of Butlers, pilots for the Pegasus Service are extremely important people and hard to replace. As the Service is nominally a part of the City Watch and overlaps with the Air Police, those rare and special people, people who are hard to replace and whose numbers grow only slowly, those who become Pegasus pilots, must also be trained and qualified Watchmen so as to take their full part in the muster, when required. Therefore, they must perform occasional street patrols. Which exposes them to a certain degree of hazard."

Claude smoothly poured hot chocolate for his employers.

"With double cream, as you prefer it, Professor? I understand Sir Samuel is under constraint, not least from the Patrician, to keep such valuable assets intact. Lord Vetinari has pointed out that each of those seventeen ladies who fly for the City are vital people and to lose any one needlessly on routine Watch service would be grievous. I am also given to understand that Captain Romanoff and Lieutenant Politek are quite capable of getting acerbic with the Commander, in the event of a member of their sisterhood coming to grief. Mr Willikins avers that his employer would prefer to avoid that possibility, if he can."

Claude stepped back.

"My understanding is that Miss Rebecka will have more people than she thinks, discreetly checking on her welfare tonight. As indeed will Miss Sophie. Simple warm milk for you, my Lady? I have taken the liberty of adding a measured quantity of brandy to your bedtime drink. Bitterfontein klipdrift, from the Lensen family distillery."

Johanna got the unspoken hint.

 _She's safe. You are better off in your bed, my Lady._

A little later she went to bed. She had another duty tonight, one that put her on call for a different sort of emergency work. Johanna selected and laid out a set of professionally appropriate clothing, knowing if a clacks message came in, the duty goblin would rush it straight to her. The smell of goblin in the bedroom could wake her from the deepest sleep. It would do that for _anybody_. Next to her, Ponder relaxed into sleep. She sighed again. Knowing tonight, a Saturday with all the pubs, bars, nightclubs and related establishments open and packed, would be Bekki's initiation into Watch street patrolling - that had been deeply worrying. Johanna had wanted to get into Assassin black and get some exercise in, edificeering and roof-running, purely coincidentally along the streets which would be her daughter's assigned beat. You know, just in case. Just, well, discreetly keeping an eye out.

Ponder had said "No, Johanna." She had recognised the harmonics. It was the voice her husband used when he had realised, long before she did, that she was having a really bad idea. Ponder could be surprisingly firm when he had to be. Johanna had realised, a long time ago, that when he got insistent like this, it was a good idea to take heed and listen. Because if he considered it important enough to get firm about, he was usually _right._ There was no getting around that. She thought it was down to years of working with the Faculty and dealing with some of the mad ideas the old men had, of developing an instinct that could spot a stupendously stupid and potentially disastrous notion from miles way. Part of the reason why her husband was now an older Wizard who had survived long enough to become, in a quiet sort of way and without anybody really registering it **(2),** the second most powerful Wizard at Unseen University. She realised it was a transferable skill Ponder Stibbons now used on _her_ , whenever her own mind took a holiday from reason and emotion took over. And she was hugely thankful for it.

"And how do you think the rest of the Watch are going to view a new recruit, out on her first street patrol, whose mother turns up to hold her hand on a night shift?" Ponder had said, practically. And, damn it, he'd been _right._ It was a dumb idea. "She's got to do this on her own, Johanna."

Eventually, Johanna Smith-Rhodes slept. Hot chocolate laced with brandy had helped.

 _ **The City Watch, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork, the same Saturday night.**_

Commander Sir Samuel Vimes prowled around the Yard. He liked the bustle of Saturday nights. He'd seen the busiest shift in the Night Watch week at every level on the ladder and in just about every capacity the Watch could offer, ever since his long-ago days as a Watch recruit **.(3)** Vimes liked Saturday nights. They were, he considered, the essence of what everyday routine Watch work was all about, the bread-and-butter of policing. Although, he considered, he might pass on actually _eating_ such a slice. A metaphor could only do so much work. He also considered a typical Saturday Night Watch shift in the city would be the ideal _chuck-them-in-at-the-deep-end_ blooding for the batch of new recruits, where they discovered what being a Watchman really meant, short on sleep and high on boredom-interspersed-with-moments-of-terror, where they were up against it and could ask themselves afterwards if being a Watchman was really for them. The proving ground. He wasn't unreasonable: every new Watchman had been paired with a very experienced old hand. And tonight he'd see how they did. He thought of the Assassin thing of The Final Run. Vimes wondered if a Saturday night shift in the City was the Watch version, for its new people. _Except that unless anyone's really unlucky or stupid or suicidal, nobody's going to be dead by morning…_

He stood on a high balcony overlooking the public area of the Yard, and watched the bustle of people. Arrestees coming in to be processed, Watchmen of all genders and species going about their work, Fred Colon at the high desk of Duty Sergeant, and the usual throng of nicked people, of more-or-less innocent citizens in to report crimes, friends and family members of victims and the arrested being anxious, truculent or just getting in the way, a reporter or two from the _**Times**_ and the _**Inquirer**_ being bloody nuisances as they sought stories… a typical Saturday, in fact.

He breathed in deep, satisfied and in his way happy. This was pure and unadulterated police work, untainted by Politics or high intrigue. Pure policing. It was his world.

After a while, Captain Olga Romanoff joined him. He accepted his senior officers had this right; usually Vimes was scrupulously left alone in moments like this, while he appreciated the atmosphere of the Watch on a Saturday.

"Thought you were off duty tonight, Olga?" he asked. She shrugged.

"Saturday night." she said. "A busy time. At this moment I have fifteen brooms airborne. Sixteen, including myself."

Vimes nodded.

"Fifteen. That's a lot more than usual. Normally we only have seven or eight on a Saturday? Including reserves at the Air Station?"

Olga shrugged again.

"Practically everybody volunteered for tonight, Commander. I had to insist those rostered for work tomorrow morning stayed away. Including those who will be on Pegasus Service duty for Sunday flights."

Vimes gave her a long considered look. Olga remained inscrutable.

"For some reason practically your entire strength wished to be on duty tonight? I wonder why."

Olga shrugged again.

"The overtime pay is an attraction, certainly."

Vimes reflected on how a distinct Far Überwaldean accent was re-emerging in her voice. Olga had lost a lot of it, having spent so long away from Home. He reflected she'd recently started spending more time there, patching things up with her father.

"A lot of people patrolling around the Docks and the Shades tonight have reported seeing a lot of Air Police in the air there." he remarked. "A _lot_ more than usual. I'm sure that has nothing to do with Probationary Air Policewomen Rawlinson and Smith-Rhodes being on foot patrol in those areas?"

Olga paused slightly before replying.

"The Docks and the Shades are hazardous places for Watchmen." she said. And, because Olga was honest, she added

"Our new fledglings will become Pegasus Service pilots, Commander. That is a consideration. And we in the Air Police keep an eye out for our own."

Vimes understood this.

"Just put the overtime dockets on Inspector Pessimal's desk in the morning, Olga? I'll initial them for processing as usual."

"Thank you, sir."

They went downstairs to the foyer, to assist in crowd control and to be seen. More detainees were being brought in, some resigned, some passive, some truculent, and some resisting. The arresting officers, or those unloading the catch-wagons, were steering them for processing and delivery to cells. Vimes and Olga added their presence to the process, with many of the brighter prisoners realising exactly _who_ was eyeballing them into acceptance of their state.

Vimes was drawn to one man, a huge heavily muscled brute, a typical street-brawler, who at that moment was trembling slightly and manifesting a traumatised thousand-yard stare. Vimes wondered what had happened. Normally Vincent Grobley was six feet six of heavily muscled trouble who took a troll or a golem to subdue him, especially after a night of serious drinking that brought out his truculent side. But right now…

"What's troubling you, Vince?" Vimes asked, affably. He noted the stale smell of much drink taken. A connoisseur of these things, he reckoned it was about nine pints of Freakston's Old Growler.

Vincent Grobley gulped and controlled his breathing.

"I'm givin' you no bother, Mr Vimes. I'm comin' quietly. Honest."

He gulped again.

"It was 'orrible. Mr Vimes. 'Orrible. The way she _looked_ at me out there. And what she _said_ to me. I'll be good, Mr Vimes. Just don't let her near me. Please?"

Vincent Grobley shuddered again. Vimes noted he was handcuffed. He wondered who'd got the cuffs on him.

" _She?"_ he asked, his brain catching up.

Grobley shuddered again and nodded, mutely.

Vimes looked at the escorting officer, who grinned.

"One of the new girls, sir. Probationary Air Constable Rawlinson. Her bust."

He glanced to his right. Yes. Olga Romanoff had a sudden look of deep satisfaction on her face.

"Horrible." Grobley repeated, far away. "She really went to town on me. Shouldn't be allowed."

Vimes stepped up and eyeballed him.

"I hope you are not accusing one of my officers of Watch brutality, Vincent?"

"No, Mr Vimes, sir. Wouldn't ever dream of it! Never ever crossed my mind, sir. Besides, I think she'd kill me."

Vimes grinned. Sophie Rawlinson would do. He'd have to ask her later how she'd managed it…

"Get him to the cells, would you? What the Hells is _that_?"

As the compliant Grobley was led away, Vimes and Olga turned to the new arrivals, all handcuffed, truculent, drunk and loud. Several Watchmen were hustling them in, including Captain Carrot.

"What's _this_ lot, then, Carrot?"

Captain Carrot straightened his helmet, which had gone askew in the struggle. Vimes eyeballed the four men who were being half-dragged in. Looked like typical sailors of some nationality, just off a ship at the Docks and catching up on drinking time…

"Drunk, disorderly, violent affray, actual and grievous bodily harm." he said. "They're being difficult. We know they can speak good Morporkian but they're refusing to speak it, apart from demanding to see somebody from their Embassy."

" _Ek het jou gesê. Ons wil ons konsul sien. Nou!"_ one of the four said. Vimes recognised the language, but could barely speak it. He turned to Carrot.

"According to Probationary Air Policewoman Smith-Rhodes, sir, they're crew members from the Rimwards Howondalandian warship _Marius van der Lubbe._ That arrived here this afternoon on a goodwill visit."

Vimes shook his head.

"So they decided to spread the goodwill and foster international co-operation and understanding by getting into a big fight." he said.

Carrot grinned, ruefully.

"The fact the Springboeks narrowly lost the game this afternoon didn't help. And according to Miss Smith-Rhodes, the crew get awfully sensitive about their ship being called _The Landlubber._ They don't like that at all."

Vimes blinked.

"Carrot. Are you saying these are Rebecka's bust? _All_ of them? Blimey."

He looked across again. This time Olga was grinning broadly. Another of her new Air Witches had passed the test.

"Yes, sir. They were so surprised that a Watchwoman could speak their language back at them that it gave her the upper hand. Miss Smith-Rhodes was apparently very eloquent. And her mother taught her a few useful self-defence skills, which according to Visit came in very handy. And when the rest learnt the arresting officer was called Smith-Rhodes and clocked that she has red hair… well. Four arrests."

"Johanna's daughter." Vimes said, with deep satisfaction. "Is Bekki here? We need somebody who can speak their language at them."

" _Ek het jou gesê. Ons wil ons konsul sien. Nou!"_

Olga stepped forward. She scowled at them and then smiled slightly.

"I marry Vondalaander man." she said. "My Vondalaans not good. I speak not perfect. I learn. You want consul from Embassy? I get you Consul from Embassy. I _happy_ get you Consul from Embassy."

All Vimes heard was Vondalaans, articulated by somebody whose first language was Far Überwaldean. The combination of the two accents sounded to his ears like a promise and a commitment to grind a broken bottle into their faces, very, very, slowly. It had that sort of overtone to it.

"But _na-now_ you go cell." Olga said. "And _justnow_ I get you Consul. This I _promise_."

She turned to Vimes, saluted him, and spoke in Morporkian.

"I need to go and send a clacks, sir." she said. "I believe I know who the duty Consul is for tonight at the Rimwards Howondalandian Embassy. Our guests can wait in a cell?"

"Cart them off, Carrot." Vimes directed. "When you're done, Olga, you might want to go out on patrol and catch up with your fledglings? Mention I'd like a word with them both later. Thanks."

The four sailors were led off to a cell. Vimes shook his head. Foreign navy in port after a long voyage. He wondered how many ratings were going to be collected the next morning by a hard-eyed Regulating Chief Petty Officer for naval discipline. Vimes had no objection to this, if he nicked military personnel. Giving them over to their own military police the next morning saved paperwork and ensured they'd get appropriate punishment. Besides, the Naval Attaché at the Embassy was likely to come down on them like the proverbial, too.

He grinned and went back to police duty.

 _ **Vaalvaaser, The Free State Of Oranges, Rimwards Howondaland**_

Several thousand miles away, and in the middle of the afternoon by local time, Mrs Salje duPris looked down, slightly disbelievingly, at what had arrived by parcel post from distant Ankh-Morpork. She picked up the pen and began writing to her son, a pupil at the Assassins' Guild School, frowning slightly as she composed her thoughts.

Dearest Andrijs.

Well, everybody is thriving here and the crop in the field looks likely to be bountiful, Gods permitting. All of us miss you and we are pleased that you are thriving at school. You mention a young girl called Rebecka in your letter but you have told us surprisingly little about her. I would hear more. What sort of a young woman is she and are we likely to meet her? I am interested that she is from good family in the Transvaal and visits there occasionally, and also that her mother is one of your schoolteachers. I understand she thinks well of you and that she has no objection to your spending time with her daughter. Also that she ensures you attend Kerk on Octeday, which is reassuring to hear.

Which leads me to the very surprising thing that happened.

We received, out of the blue, a package containing several boxes of Higgs and Meakins' Milk Chocolate Assorted Platter this afternoon with a courtesy slip from the Company. The managing director, Mr Higgs, said that after consultation with a Doctor Smith-Rhodes from the Guild of Assassins' School, they had been provided with our address. They were given to understand that I have two daughters and a daughter-in-law, and they were honoured to send four boxes of their finest chocolates, gratis, in acknowledgement of a service you indirectly provided for the Company. One for each of us. Enclosed, also, were clippings of several newspaper and magazine advertisements in which a young man in black – who looks a little like you - surmounts a challenging obstacle to deliver chocolates to a young lady. The repeating line in the advertisements is _All because the lady loves Higgs' and Meakins' Finest Milk Platter Assorted Selection._

Apparently this is to do with you, Andrjis? Something you did as part of your education? Please explain. The Higgs and Meakins' company has said they will periodically send more chocolates to us. Apparently Doctor Smith-Rhodes, who is Rebecka's mother, suggested this to them as part of some sort of "amicable licencing agreement". Your father, too, is curious to know what exactly you have been up to. He hopes it is legal. I hope it is not likely to get you into trouble.

And you must tell us more about Rebecka. I am interested to know.

Your loving mother, who misses you.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork, on an early Sunday morning in October**_

Johanna awoke as the goblin, standing deferentially at the bedside, passed her the clacks flimsy. She read it, and was unsurprised. She was also relieved it wasn't bad news about Bekki. It was the other thing. She thanked the goblin, reassured Ponder, who promptly went back to sleep, and started, unhurriedly, to prepare herself for the other duty.

The goblin gone, with an instruction to clacks for a cab, she freshened herself and dressed, unhurriedly, taking deliberate care over her selected apparel and appearance. It would be bad form and discourteous to the client to look dishevelled and anything less than impeccable.

She noted the light was still on in her daughter Ruth's room and sighed, resignedly. Ruth had obviously had some sort of nocturnal inspiration and would in all probability be sitting there with pen and paper working it out. At least it didn't appear to be a musical one. Ruth had needed to be instructed that piano playing at three in the morning, however thrilling and immediate the idea was, was not a good thing. If she could just put the theme to paper in musical notation and let it play inside her head, _please_? You can try it out during the day.

A little later, her cab arrived.

 _ **Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland**_

Pieter van der Graaf poured two glasses of good klipdrift. It was good: a Lensen blend. Mariella always saw to it that her uncle got a bottle or two. It wasn't just a thoughtful niece being kind to a relative; it had indirectly got the Lensen distillery a lot of sales in the political quarter, and a lucrative government contract or two. Pieter always saw to it that discerning visitors were offered Lensen beverages. He made sure, if they expressed appreciation, to give details of which vineyard and distillery produced it. It was a returned favour to Mariella and Horst.

He considered his guest, who wasn't entirely here for political reasons. There was a more direct and personal reason for this consultation. Pieter pushed a glass over to the other man present, who was seated in a relaxed, and rarely for him, a deferential, manner.

" _Dankie."_ said Hans Dreyer.

Pieter nodded. He smiled slightly. The legendary General "Crowbar" Dreyer was in uniform. He had hardly ever been seen in anything else. Pieter wondered if he owned _any_ civilian clothing. The Army was his life and had been for well over two decades, getting on for three, now. But this quiet informal drink on the stoep was only incidentally about political and military business, despite one man being a very senior politician and the other being a very senior Army officer with a reputation for getting unorthodox things done. This was the sort of drink that dealt with other matters, more immediate and personal ones. Dreyer, unusually for him, looked nervous and a little bit submissive.

Pieter van der Graaf smiled again. He had some mixed feelings about this. But, he reflected, his wife Friejda didn't. Friejda had been _insistent_ the two men had this Talk.

"I'm not going to get in the way or _insist_ on anything." Pieter said. "It's between the two of you as to how it plays out. You're both old enough to know your own minds and to be frank, as her father, part of me is pretty much relieved. Her sister did the expected thing a long time ago, and Friejda's got the grandchildren to fuss over. What you do is up to you both."

"So I have your blessing to continue seeing your daughter?" the Crowbar said.

Pieter van der Graaf kept his face totally straight. A lifetime in diplomacy had taught him an essential skill and confronted him with lots of strange situations. One of his country's most lethal weapons was now sitting in front of him, a man in his forties who had hitherto never married, doing something as normal and everyday as being a nervous boyfriend getting the Talk from her father. Pieter caught himself. Thought of _marriage_ was premature.

" _Blessing_ and _permission_ don't come into it." Pieter said, drily. "If I forbade this, Suki would just ignore me and go ahead and do it anyway. There's only so much you can do with a daughter who is unmarried, over thirty and very definitely unconventional. But if you want a frank opinion, I suspect the two of you are ideally suited for each other. She could do worse."

Dreyer relaxed. Suki had said her father would weigh up the pros and cons in his head, as with any diplomatic strategy, and come down in favour. _But watch Mother_.

"You do need to be aware, and I'd be surprised if you haven't already noticed, that Friejda is overjoyed. She's making a plan for your wedding already, to be frank. And yes, I _do_ realise that's running a long way ahead of where you both are now. That's Friejda. She'll never change. Not only does she see this as a Heaven-sent chance to get her unmarried daughter turned into somebody who is socially respectable and conforming to expectations, she's quite taken with the notion of a General for a son-in-law. Social respectability, you understand. Plus a military wedding in full dress uniforms with a Guard of Honour and a military band and everything."

Pieter grinned again. Hans Dreyer considered this. That he was likely to end up being out-manoevred and outclassed on a different sort of battlefield and steered into a sort of surrender. He was surprised he didn't find the notion repugnant or scary. _Sukes is alright. A man could have a lively time with a wife like her._

 _Stoep-sitting_ was a national characteristic of their people. Taking one's ease on the porch with a drink in hand and watching the sunset. Dreyer wondered how much political and diplomatic business Pieter van der Graaf successfully concluded this way. And damn it, it was quite pleasant.

"You're well over forty. You never married." Pieter said. It was a question that had implications and demanded an answer. It was, Dreyer thought, a reasonable thing, from the girl's father.

Dreyer shrugged.

"Never found the time." he said, honestly. "Way back, there was somebody. One of the first women officers in the Army. When you fight along somebody, you get to know them. We were just out of officer school, both of us. Her family have connections. Got her into the Slew."

"I may know that family." Pieter said. He already knew the story, or a version of it. He wanted Dreyer's account.

"What can you say? It never got very far. We were both well under twenty. Other things to do. I liked her. A lot. I like to think she quite liked me and would have taken it further if the chance permitted. But she was fire on legs and like a fire, you do not want to put your hand too close."

Pieter nodded, sympathetically.

"Then I encountered her father." Dreyer said. "A very emphatic man. And perceptive. He said, after the usual sort of threats you expect from big men who are protective of their daughters, that he read me as a man with a big choice to make. I could have an Army career. Or I could pursue his daughter. But in his opinion I'd never be able to do both. It had to be one or the other."

Dreyer sighed.

"He was right. I chose the Army. And that chance with Johanna faded. She did a thing that could have got her court-martialled – and I rode with her on that crazy raid into the Zulu country. It made me realise what is possible with well trained motivated people. They posted her from the Slew, and then exiled her a long way away. Never saw her again. I did hear she married a good man, in all probability a hundred times more suited for her than I would ever have been. They have daughters now. From what I hear, one of those girls, when she grows up, would be a _perfect_ fit for the Slew. Not even twelve, and already chopping up Zulus in combat."

Pieter grinned.

"You're over her?"

"I wish her well. And her family." Dreyer replied. "Things turned out for the best, all round. I suspect had we married, one of us would have ended up killing the other. And I'm not entirely sure if I would have been the one walking away alive. After Johanna – well, nobody much. Until I met Suki. You introduced us. For which I am thankful."

"Good." Pieter van der Graaf said.

They sat on the _stoep_ and contemplated the late afternoon and the sinking sun together as Howondaland's sky faded to a deeper blue. There was a long relaxed silence.

"There is another thing. Professional business." Pieter van der Graaf eventually said. Hans Dreyer sat up alert, a General again.

"I have received intelligence reports. From sources I trust. Which are _impeccable_." said the Foreign Minister of his country

"How may I assist?" asked General "Crowbar" Dreyer. He knew the Bureau of Foreign Affairs controlled a massive intelligence network, second to none, with people all around the Disc. Those reports all ended up on the Foreign Minister's desk.

Pieter van der Graaf looked grave. Dreyer had heard the name _van der Graaf_ came originally from the same roots as _gravedigger_ or _sexton_. Right now it was appropriate.

"I fear the long uneasy peace on our border with the Zulu Empire is about to end. Let me summate the information."

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork, on an early Sunday morning in October**_

In her bedroom, Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons contemplated a mechanism, turning it over in her hands. Several partially dismantled similar mechanisms sat on her worktop. Notes and sketches were to hand. Periodically she added a new note. She had an idea. She wanted to make it work. She heard somebody moving in the corridor outside and braced herself: it sounded like Mummy, who'd probably come in, tell her it was far too late, and try to coax her into going back to bed. But the footfall paused for a moment and then moved on, receding. Ruth relaxed.

 _It needs some sort of transmission, a linking device which transfers the movement of the smaller mechanism into precise movements of the bigger one. But they have to be in perfect step with each other. And it needs to change in a defined way over time. Not a constant movement. How can I do this?_

She puzzled on. It would be a present for Bekki, if she got it right. Bekki needed something like this for her new job…

Lemmy the imp passed her a cogwheel, rolling it down the worktop.

"Thank you." Ruth said, politely. "Jack, could you get inside the case, and tighten up this little cog by two half turns? You're really good at this. Thank you."

And a girl genius and her tiny helpers carried on with a delicate job.

 _ **The City Watch, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork, the same Saturday night.**_

Olga Romanoff was allowed into the cell underneath the Yard. The four detainees sat up straight and eyeballed her. Olga scowled back.

"Consul from Embassy, you wanted." she said, in her fractured Vondalaans. "I pleased to find for you. I very pleased. Here is Consul."

The woman who walked in was dressed in impeccable Black. Guild of Assassins black. She wore, over this, the orange, white and blue diplomatic sash. The four sailors saw a woman in her forties, still attractive, with red hair. She took them in and nodded at them. She had the air of a woman dragged out of bed to perform an avoidable chore and who was correspondingly tetchy about it.

" _Hoe op jou ore en luister."_ she said, in a Transvaal accent. _"Hulle nom my Johanna Smith-Rhodes. Ek is konsul."_

It began to dawn on the brightest and least drunk sailor who they'd got. And that she had a marked family resemblance to the Watchwoman who had somehow arrested them. This was not comforting. Not at all.

" _Horosho."_ said the strange foreign woman, the Captain who spoke bad Vondalaans. _"Kiff_." Olga beckoned in a Watchman who would now record witness statements as Johanna extracted them. Then she leant on the wall to enjoy the show.

 _ **Pearl Dock, Ankh-Morpork.**_

"Ahoy, the ship!" Constable Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamhplets-Concerning-The-Truth-Of-Om called, standing at the bottom of the gangway. The naval guard at the top of the gangway looked attentively down at him. They carried crossbows, but were not pointing them.

"Your cue, miss." Visit said.

Probationary Air Policewoman Smith-Rhodes stood next to him. Bekki felt horribly exposed on the quiet dark wharf, lit only with occasional flickering sconces. Visit had said this would be the quietest part of their patrol beat, miss. Most of the ships only have a token crew on board, and the longshoremen are all in the pubs getting riotous and being Somebody Else's Problem. All you'll get down here are night watchmen, beggars finding somewhere to sleep and if we're unlucky, the odd robbery in progress. And most that is going to be official Thieves' Guild stuff, so we just need to check their Guild licences and move on. Quietest place in the City this time of night.

Bekki had sensed broomsticks in the night and thought she recognised several of the pilots. That had been reassuring. One had found them and landed, and Olga Romanoff herself had passed over some written instructions.

"You did well, _devyushka_." Olga had said, then taken flight again.

And right now, Bekki was calling up to the sailors, speaking Vondalaans, explaining who they were and asking to speak to the Duty Officer.

Which had led them to the wardroom and a welcome mug of coffee.

Bekki had explained to the duty Lieutenant that several members of the ship's company had been arrested for public order offences and drunken-ness, were in the cells at Pseudopolis Yard, and she was here to hand over a list of names and assure the ship that its crew members were being fairly treated. and had been given the opportunity to speak to a Consul.

"The Embassy sent somebody out." Bekki said. She vaguely recalled Mum helped out here now and again. A Consul didn't need to be a paid diplomat; a locally based citizen in good standing, who could mediate the expectations of host nation and a vistor who was in trouble, was usually sufficient. Mum was on a Consular rota, along with lots of other locally based Howondalandians, and turned out for expenses and maybe a small fee. Bekki thought it would be really ironic if it had turned out to be Mum, dragged out of bed at midnight. "It was perhaps thought sufficient to have a Consul and not disturb the Naval Attaché, Captain Blaankersman. I've met him, and I believe he would not have been sympathetic to sailors who get into avoidable trouble."

The young Lieutenant, probably not long out of the Naval Academy at Simonstown, winced slightly. He'd probably heard his country's local Naval presence in Ankh-Morpork had a reputation as a martinet who would not be sympathetic to errant ratings. Or to their immediate commanding officers aboard a visiting ship here on a diplomatic goodwill gesture.

"Thank you." he said. He looked at Bekki. "You look a bit young to be doing this job, Miss Smith-Rhodes." He had logged the visit and the incident and said he would make arrangements for a Petty Officer to go out and collect them in the morning, but he was happy for them to stew for tonight. Partly as a courtesy to visit The discusion was in morporkian; Bekki assessed him as a _Poorkie_ , a Morporkian-speaking Howondalandian.

"Think of her as a police cadet." Visit had said. Then he had asked what arrangements were made aboard ship to any sailor of the Omnian faith. He, Visit, had some pamphlets here in Vondalaans, which he had intended to offer to Miss Smith-Rhodes at an appropriate time...

The officer kindly accepted them and said he'd add them to the ship's library. Any distraction when you're off-watch on a long voyage would be welcome, and improving literature of all sorts was gratefully accepted. **(4)** Then they left, Bekki having diplomatically fended off an invitation to a reception aboard ship.

The rest of the night passed without great incident, and Bekki realised she'd now passed out a Watchman. Commander Vimes had said as much at the debriefing.

On her way out, seeking a warm bed, Bekki was met by Irena Politek. Her Godsmother looked her over.

"Looks like you're a Watchwoman now, _devyuschka."_ Irena said, pleasantly. "Well, this is where your training really begins. This is where you learn how to be a Pegasus Service pilot. Follow me, _dev…_ _zhar-ptitsa."_

Bekki really wanted to say _"Can it wait till after I've had some sleep?"_ Then realised in this context, Godsmother Irena was her superior officer, and it might not go down too well. She allowed herself to be escorted away, up towards the Air Station. Where she remembered she still had to feed, water, and groom Boetjie. However dog-tired she was.

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Ankh-Morpork, Monday morning.**_

Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons had returned to School as a second-year pupil. New year, new dorm. And a new Housemistress. Famke had attended Miss Lansbury's wedding because, well, you had to, and a wedding was always a bit sweet, even if Toby Stitched was an utter drip. _Well, she's ancient. She probably got past the point where she could afford to be choosy._ The newlyweds had moved into a house at Turnmangle Lane, which was just round the corner from Spa Lane and therefore too close for comfort. Famke wasn't wholly content with the idea that so many of her teachers, all friends of Mum, now lived in the same few streets.

Mrs Stitched-Lansbury had returned to the School just as Art Mistress. Raven House was under new management. Famke smiled. Dumb people like Sandra Venturi had considered that if their housemistress was deaf, she'd also be stupid, and therefore that they could get away with _anything_ if the supervisory teacher in charge couldn't actually _hear_ it, like a normal person would.

A rash of detentions and disciplinaries had followed. Miss Glynnie had a knack for being anywhere, usually where you'd least expect her to be. The new Housemistress, people considered, could make four senses do the work of five. Famke knew that wasn't the case. Well, not completely. Miss Glynnie seemed to inhabit a sort of world that was full of vibration, movement in the ground, in water, and crucially in the air. This was as good as another sense to her. Famke was watching carefully and making observations to try to see how it was done and if there was anything there she could learn to do. Famke was good at noticing things. _After all, the same vibrations are around me too, all the time. I just don't notice them, because I can hear._

She had said as much to her teacher at the end of a music lesson. Miss Glynnie had smiled and given Famke a long appreciative look.

"I knew you were an exceptional pupil, Famke." she had said, in her carefully reassembled voice that never sounded quite natural. "There are teachers here who believe you might benefit from more advanced training, of the sort not usually given to second year pupils. Miss Band, for one. I will speak to your mother, but I believe she would not object if you were to attend an evening lecture I deliver to students on the Black. This is, of course, conditional on your not neglecting your other studies, and will be extra work for you."

Miss Glynnie had also advised Famke not to forget that from exceptional people, much, much, more is demanded, not least in areas like good behaviour and good conduct. She, Miss Glynnie, would be monitoring this. _Constantly_.

"From the exceptional, exceptional things are _demanded_."

Famke had accepted this. This was a teacher she liked and respected. Even if a dumb cowbag like Sandra Venturi had taken to calling her _The Witch_ , because, well, she wears her Black as if it was an old witch's tatty dress, and she _looks_ like one, all she needs is a pointy hat and a broomstick.

"My _sister_ 's a witch." Famke had said, meaningfully, feeling a need to defend Bekki. Then Miss Glynnie had appeared from nowhere to arbitrate the ensuing dispute.

Famke wondered why she'd taken Sandra's disparaging comments about Witches in general to be a slur on her sister. She paused, remembering that _tricky_ time in Lancre earlier in the summer. Quite a few Witches had looked at her and said "Oh yes. The younger sister" and similar things, in much the same tone of voice in which Watchmen might refer to Norris, the Eyeball-Eating Maniac of Quirm, as "Oh yes. Him. The serial killer." Famke had realised she was being _monitored_ , and had taken care to behave.

Bekki had casually lobbed a fireball at her. Famke had been too surprised to react, but had realised, wreathed in what looked like orange flame, that this wasn't _burny_ or anything, it was, in fact, interestingly cool and pleasant, just a light show. Bekki had said later

"Do you think I'd ever throw a _real_ fireball at you? _Ever?_ That was cold flame. Just light. Dad showed me the spell. He knew what it was straight away, did you notice?"

And the other witch, the one from Far Überwald who made somebody as exotically different as Olga Romanoff look by comparison as if she'd been brought up in Dimwell, the one who looked like a long slender black-haired reed in the long black coat who'd done that really cool dance with the swords, she'd hugged Bekki later and given her a Witch name in Far Überwaldean. Olga and Irena and the others who knew what it meant had applauded and said it really fitted her. Apparently it meant _Fire-Bird_ , or something. Ruthie had wanted to do some art around the theme.

And now Famke was in a large lecture room with students on the Black. She felt excited. This was the sort of thing she'd come to this school for. The real deal. And she realised, looking around her, that training on the Black didn't necessarily segregate pupils by year-group. There were pupils of all ages from fifteen to nineteen: she stood out, being only twelve. There was even a scattering of incredibly _old_ people, the oldest of whom seemed to be around fifty. Famke frowned: she remembered her mother and Miss Band and Auntie Emmie had arrived late. Mum had said she'd been only nineteen, the youngest person in her Mature Students' year, and the oldest had been well into her forties. Mum had _begun_ as an Assassin at an age when most people had left school, a late starter. Famke studied them with curiosity, wondering who they'd killed to arrive here. Mum had been reluctant to talk about it, saying only "there was a war on." Then she asked the really important question. Anyone could _kill_ or _murder_. _How_ had they killed people, in whatever stylish and innovative or inventive ways, for the Guild to take notice of them and to persuade the City to put them on extended probation and not hang them for common murder? Auntie Emmie had said the Guild was highly selective concerning who it made The Offer to, as it had in her time, and indeed that of your mother, _ma très chère mignonne._

And then, Miss Glynnie arrived to take the class. She walked up to the presenting podium, thanked people for attending, and introduced herself.

"I was born without the ability to hear, as most people can. My early education was haphazard, in the way of such training as is thought suitable for _the handicapped_. I was taught to read and write and the basic skills. I also learnt to speak, after a fashion, by observing the motion of people's mouths and tongues as they articulated words, and seeking to replicate their speech, in a very trial-and-error sort of way, living as I do in a completely silent world. When I learnt an additional skill, speech became _easier_. But this is part of my teaching, which I will share with you."

Apparently, Lord Vetinari had sent in inspectors to Report on the Assassins' Guild School and to make recommendations for improvement. One observation was that the School did not reach out sufficiently to the needs of physically handicapped children and should take a quota, to educate them alongside able-bodied people. The Guild had protested that the profession of Assassin rather called for a person completely sound in body. If a trained Assassin later lost a limb, or became blind, that was regrettable, but we would of course look after our own in those circumstances. However, to _begin_ with people who are physically deficient, in a highly physical environment, is something for which we do not, alas, have adequate facilities or resources…

Lord Vetinari had listened to the arguments, and had said "From next term you will, of course, be taking several _differently abled_ people as students. To guide you, here are some case studies. Read them at your leisure."

Ethylene Glynnie had arrived, a student in Lady T'Malia's Scorpion House. And had flourished, her teachers respecting commitment and determination to succeed. A blind colleague, Miss Glynnie said, used his perceived disability to advantage too. "He is, for instance, not troubled by movement in dark places at night, as to him, _all_ places are dark. I have the same relationship with sound."

An eventful few years in a higher musical conservatory and a position as Principal Percussionist in a major orchestra had followed. As a travelling orchestra moves from city to city in a nomadic sort of way, she had also been able to fit in one or two Guild contracts under cover of her career, and had been invited back to teach.

Then she proceeded to the heart of her lecture. Famke found this exciting and absorbing. Miss Glynnie lectured and taught Non-Verbal Communication. It was her Black skill. She had noted even as a student that the various signalling and finger-code systems taught by the Guild for use in situations where making speech was not advisable were, from her point of view, _crude_ and _basic_. She had begun refining and elaborating on them even as a student Assassin, and her teachers had taken note that this was indeed something a deaf Assassin could bring to the Guild. Over the years, Miss Glynnie had revolutionised NVC, and had, indeed, not only rewritten the manuals but extended the shelf the manuals stood on.

"And this is your introduction, ladies and gentlemen, to non-verbal communication." she said.

Famke listened and learnt, enthralled. **(5)**

 _ **The Street Of The Accountants And Book-Keepers, Ankh-Morpork**_

Shauna O'Hennigan had left school. She had a new job, a _first_ job. in fact, to settle into. Bekki's mum had fixed it for her. She was working for Bekki's mum, in fact. It had all come out of a conversation they'd had when she was a guest at the Smith-Rhodes'. Doctor Johanna had asked if Shauna had given any thought to what she'd do after leaving school. Shauna, who had been dreading conversations like this, had said something about not being sure, but that she thought she might get a production line job somewhere, or something, at one of the factories.

Bekki's mum had looked kindly at her. And had then said

"Oh, you can do better than that. Why not come and work for me?"

Johanna had then explained. A lot of her colleagues had investments in businesses and enterprises that paid a steady dividend. As indeed did she, Johanna Smith-Rhodes. She understood that her colleagues lacked the time or leisure or inclination to manage their own financial and business affairs. She understood that: her own life was a busy one. So she'd had the idea of setting up a management office that administrated these things for quite a few people, including herself. Just to see that everything runs smoothly, our businesses are being monitored, people are paid their shares at the right times, and somebody keeps track of the banking, the bookwork, dealing with suppliers and sales, and so on. You're bright, you have some spark in you, you're honest, I happen to quite like you, and every so often I will need a personal assistant in my own work, at the School and the Zoo and elsewhere. So do you want to give it a go, let's say on a starting pay of sixteen dollars a month?

Shauna had accepted, and found she quite liked it. And four fecking dollars a week. She was sixteen: this beat two dollars in a factory, if she was lucky.

She now found herself in the offices of the Management Holdings company, an upstairs suite on the Street of Accountants, staffed in the main by former Assassin students who had left without Talking Black, and had gone on to study in things like Accountancy and Law, learning about what was needed to defend the business interests of those Assassins who had invested in businesses either owned by, created by, or who worked in partnership, with Johanna Smith-Rhodes. The businesses that had developed some of the ideas and insights Johanna had had over the years. Other Assassins with investment portfolios - and now some Wizards - paid consultancy fees for this office to manage their affairs. It was another thriving concern and did well.

Shauna looked at some of the things on the wall, either samples of the goods being traded, or framed pictures of more delicate and perishable items. These ranged from the baked dessert called a _cheesecake,_ to the agricultural device used to enhance stock quality levels **(6).** There was a cut-out square of the wire fencing devised by Dwarfs, something Johanna had seen the potential of long before anybody else. Johanna had made sure to get sole rights for overseas sales. _Occassional overseas travel,_ Shauna's employer had said. _All expenses paid._ Apparently there was a manufacturing plant in Howondaland, in Johanna's home town, and this stuff sold by the _mile_ , in a country which had very big farms. And a new item on the wall was a strange-looking guitar with only four strings. It wasn't Johanna who had the rights on that: but this office looked after the intellectual property rights residing in her daughter Ruth, who'd come up with the Bass Guitar. They also looked after literary rights; two Assassin schoolgirls had once come up with an idea that had sparked off a popular series of books for children. This office also brokered their author contracts and saw to it that fair and accurate payments were received from the publishers. **(7)** Other authors were managed here, too.

It was fascinating. And Shauna was going to learn all about it, from the bottom up. _And_ get paid twice as much as she thought she could earn, for learning about it. All in all, she considered herself lucky.

 _ **The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork**_

"Focus. Concentrate. This is _essential_." Irena Politek said.

Bekki sighed. At least with basic Watch training over, she could live at home again, in her own bed in her own room at night. Barracks had felt like an exile. But this was _difficult._

"The Disc moves." Irena had said. "The Turtle moves. The Disc moves on the shoulders of the four world elephants. Three connected things, each moving in its own way at three different speeds. And our sun moves around all three."

She indicated the large world-map on the office wall. The principal routes of the Pegasus Service were outlined in tape of various colours.

"What does this mean for us? Well, at the moment it is nine-thirty in the morning in Ankh-Morpork."

She indicated the large clock on the wall.

"But Ankh-Morpork is here."

She indicated it on the map, with the long pointer.

"Here is Astrakhan, on the river Vulga. Several thousand miles away. Here is HungHung City in Agatea. This is New Scrote, in Howondaland. Three of many places we visit on our assigned runs. Do you think it is still nine-thirty in the morning in any of these places?"

Irena had stressed the importance of, for instance, if we undertake to deliver despatches to the Archmage of Krull by ten in the morning by local Krullian time, it is bloody important to be there at ten. The Krullians can get touchy about these things. Therefore you need to know what time – by local Ankh-Morporkian time – to leave here after collecting the despatches and attending a briefing at the Palace. And it is very advisable to be on time for Lord Vetinari, also.

"Take it from me, it plays Hell with your body clock." Irena had said. "This you will learn, and you will learn it well."

Bekki looked at Sophie. Sophie looked back. Then they gritted their teeth and started learning about things like Precession, the Great Year, the Common Year, axial rotation of the turtle, and speed of rotation of the Disc, and how to calculate the current time at any given point on the Disc on any given day. Apparently this was not fixed and varied with the time of the Great Year.

Bekki felt her head swimming. Working for the Pegasus Service was not, in some fundamental respects, going to be straightforward at all. Especially if she was going to be commuting in, two or three days a week, from Rimwards Howondaland. **(8)**

 ** _The City of the Igonyamazi, the Zulu Empire._ **

Ruth N'Kweze had returned from a few days of being alongside her father, learning the practical aspects of everyday management of an Empire. Being at the heart of things in the Royal Kraal had also exposed her to the political intrigue and machinations that went on all the time. Her head ached. She wondered how the hell people like Vetinari managed it. After spending time with Nipho - that was important, whatever the Hells else was happening - she had called together her closest advisors for an indaba. Some of the intelligence coming out of the Royal Kraal, the sea of rumour, disinformation, counter-information and occassionally reliable intelligence - was deeply disquieting. It concerned her brother Sinbothwe, the only one of her siblings who, at this late stage in the game, could make any sort of credible bid to wrest the power from her on the soon-expected death of their father.

Sissi N'Kima had looked seriously grave.

"We have intelligence assets in his impis, Ruth." she said. "We can rely on them for useful information, if he is set on doing this stupid thing."

Ruth nodded. Unfortuately her half-brother was too powerful, and too well guarded. If he dissappeared or met with a tragic accident, questions would be asked and fingers pointed at likely suspects. And he'd backed down soon enough after his one overt threat to her and had very carefully been seen making obesiance and pledging loyalty to the Heir and to the half-sister who would rule the Empire in his name. She had no reason to go against him, or at present, none that could be made to stick. He was very carefully providing none. taking him on could provoke the very civil war she'd been working to avoid, as their half-brothers and half-sisters lined up behind the sibling of their choice. But the whispers were loud and disturbing.

"My father's condition will get worse over the next few months." Ruth said. "It is likely he will spend more time away from the public arena as he weakens and eventually dies. Which could take months. More of my time will be taken up by ruling in his name and dealing with all the million and one things it needs to make this whole country work. We have a weakening King and an inexperienced Princess-Regent dealing with matters of state. Meanwhile, his strongest son, who is sore and whose pride has been affronted in that the Paramount Throne is passing to a mere sister, is waiting for high summer, when the border rivers are drier and flowing so shallow that impis can ford them. If my information is right, he wants his impis of the Usothogwe to raid into White Howondaland. He has been known to get a bit aerated that there have been no border raids on the old enemy for at least nine years. His hope is that after a few succesful raids, more men will flock to him in search of either plunder, or a chance to slap the whites where it hurts."

"Which weakens your position on the Throne." Chakki N'golante said. "And if the whites respond as they always have done - to send punitive forces into our country in retaliation - he can then counter them and claim to be the legitimate Paramount King, while a weak woman sits on the Throne and does nothing."

"Exactly." Ruth said. "So how do we stop him?"

Ruth wondered how to raise the tricky part, that she'd already got the information out to Pieter van der Graaf through intermediaries, assuring him that she would seek to stop any attack, and that this was not ordered by her, and that she would do everything in her power to prevent it. She read van der Graaf as one of the sanest people in the country next door who also had an interest in preventing all-out war. They'd known each other in Ankh-Morpork, anyway, for long enough. it wasn't as if she was dealing with a total stranger. She'd also written to Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who must have had the letter by now. _Between us, we can stop this happening._ Princess Ruth N'Kweze hoped so. Fervently.

 _ **Another thread to pick up in Book Two...** _

* * *

**(1)** Johanna and Visit patrol together as Watchmen in my tale _**Hear Them ChatterOn The Tide**_. A tale of oysters, a religious Cult and the all-importance of the colour blue.

 **(2)** apart from Mustrum Ridcully, who, when he saw what was happening, had decided to get Ponder Stibbons batting on his team.

 **(3)** The Air Police had come along late in Watch history; but Vimes had been on a few unofficial ride-alongs with the Air Witches, to get a taste of what they did. He was deeply appreciative of his air arm.

 **(4)** He was too diplomatic to say any source of paper when you've been at sea for six weeks is usually gratefully seized upon. You know, soft-ish paper stored immediately to hand for when you need it. For those _contemplative_ moments.

 **(5)** written for the reviewer of an earlier tale - rga156, thank you - who asked how and what sorts of finger-code and signalling are used by the Guild and how it all works. This is at least a beginning of sketching out the logic and how it all came about – how Assassins can convey complex and abstract ideas without speaking or writing them down. it will draw on sources as diverse as American Sign Language, how this differs from signing systems used elsewhere, Benedictine monks and nunly orders who still need to communicate despite a vow of silence, Helen Keller, military hand-signals, and other sources.

 **(6)** "Oh, that's the thing they call the Smith-Rhodes Cow-F..."

"We prefer to call it the Artificial Insemination Device, Shauna." Johanna had replied, hurriedly.

 **(7)** It's a short in _**The Discworld Tarot**_. After co-authoring the first couple of books, Mariella had dropped out of the series: but her co-author and artist had continued the series even after graduation and was now a Name in illustrated books for children.

 **(8)** Working out the logic of time-zones on a flat world - especially when taking turtle and elephants into account - and how this would work out in practice for the Pegasus Service. Brain explosion time.

 _ **Notes Dump:**_

 _ **The idea of "nose-art" on each Pegasus, inspired by American Air Force bombers of WW2. Not on the Pegasi themselves but on the outside of the forward cargo paniers carried by the flying horses – the outer face of large flat satchels. Each witch gets to design her own. It will have become a Pegasus Service tradition by this time, in fact.**_

 _ **An Acerian witch in the PS might have "Zemphis Al" – a cheesecake portrait of an idealised underdressed man. With wings. Which, when pressed, she will reluctantly admit is her idealisation of what her Pegasus stallion might look like if he were a human male. A dig at the "Ponyverse" here and fanfics speculating on humanised cute ponies and what Fluttershy and the rest might look like if human…**_

 _ **Bekki would commission her sister Ruth to paint her own signature art. She uses the nickname the Cossack witch Xenia Galina gave her after seeing her act at the Witch Trials and keeps the title in Rus, with perhaps a Vondalaans translation…**_

 _ **Afrikaans**_ _ **takes on the idea of "The Fire Bird"**_

 _ **Die Vuurvoël**_

 _ **Die Vuuradelaar – fire-eagle**_

 _Russian_ _:_ жар-птица _, zhar-ptitsa – the firebird. Stravinsky reference. Listen to the piece to get ideas._ Жар-птица


	56. Briewe na die Huis

_**Strandpiel 56**_

 _ **Briewe na die huis – letters to Home**_

 _ **In which Johanna Smith-Rhodes catches up with Family**_

 _ **V1.1, minor tweaks  
**_

 _ **Ideas:-**_

 _ **As always: during the working week, lots and lots and lots of inspiration particles about Things That Might Happen Next and how they could fit into the general plot.**_

 _ **Hoping to wrap up Book One of**_ **Strandpiel** _ **with at most one more chapter, having set up lots of threads to pick up in Book Two….**_

 **Aan:** Mevrou Agnetha Smith-Rhodes 'n Menheer Andreas Smith-Rhodes,

Onverwachtplaas,

Piemberg,

Die Republiek van die Transvaal,

Strandwaarts Hovondalaand/Rimwards Howondaland

Liewe Ouers,

Life is, as always, never short of interest here in Ankh-Morpork. My own working week at the School and at the Zoo remains active and fulfilling, and the everyday life of my family (if it can ever be called everyday!) occupies practically all of my remaining time. Not, I think, that I would ever have it any other way.

Rebecka remains glad and pleased that you extended your stay in the Central Continent for long enough to be present at her "graduation" as a Witch. I am glad you really enjoyed your day in Lancre and the celebration party in the evening before your departure for Home afterwards. It is true that Rebecka's intention is to travel to the Turnwise Caarp before the end of the year, to accept the invitation Mariella kindly extended to her to try out life in her Other Country. Not every Witch who graduates will formally take up a Steading, which can be thought of as a _plaas_ where the Witch is undeniably the _Mevrou_ within her own domain. Just as not every graduated Assassin will become active in our Profession. Some Witches, such as the impressive Agnes Nitt, will subsume their energies into a different Profession and bring the magic and the outlook of a Witch to that occupation. Thus we see Magrat, Queen of Lancre, who you encountered. It may be argued that her Steading is a whole country. Sophie Rawlinson, who I agree is an impressive and striking young woman, is likely, eventually, to develop into a horse-doctor whose skills, I suspect, will outpace those of Doctor Folsom. With such skills, I believe Sophie will not settle in any one place, but will travel to wherever horses are to be found, as she is needed – which given she now has a Pegasus, will be _everywhere_.

Irena and Olga, who are dear friends to our Family, devote the single-minded intensity and passion of a Witch to matters of flight. I suspect their status in the Air Police and Pegasus Service is for them a means to an end, to gather like-minded Witches to them as a squadron of women dedicated to flight and to vastly enhancing the technomancy making flight possible, in the hands of a suitably inclined magic-user. From the outside, their Steading seems to be the airbase on the roof of Pseudopolis Yard!

Which leads us back to Rebecka.

Before she travels to Howondaland, Bekki has a commitment to meet here and discharge fully. The price to pay for being chosen by a Pegasus is to serve in the Pegasus Service. My daughter is, therefore, undergoing the unavoidable period of training and induction onto the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, which all Pegasus Service fliers must inevitably undergo. I enclose iconographs of her passing-out from recruit training, and of her receiving her Watch badge from Sir Samuel Vimes. You will be proud of her. She has been allocated Watch badge number 230, which Mr Vimes assures me has not passed through all that many previous owners before becoming my daughter's. Mr Vimes also reminded me – again – that he has not reallocated my own Watch badge as he says there is always a place for me, his first Assassin Special. I am tempted to accept. As you know, I retired from the Watch just after Bekki's birth, wishing to devote myself more to Family. Mr Vimes accepted this and Lady Sybil said it was a wise decision, at least while the children were little. (I note she said "children" in the plural, even though at the time there was only one!)

Now that they are older, I am wondering about offering myself for Watch service again, perhaps twice a month. It gets under your skin, and as the children grow older and I have more time…

Bekki has, in the course of her duty, had to perform street patrols and routine police work. Mr Vimes insists every person employed by the Watch does this, even Pegasus pilots who most of the time will be elsewhere, or else performing duties with the regular Air Police. Most of the time in this City, if you see a Witch on a broomstick, she will be an Air Policewoman. They are easy to distinguish, as they wear Watch uniforms and their broomsticks are subtly different. They are even equipped with sirens now - Ponder's department developed the technomancy – and many criminals have given themselves up without fight on being pursued by an Air Witch with a screaming siren blaring.

However, Bekki is learning elementary policing from the ground up, which involves street patrols, mainly on foot. I worry about her, but this is inevitable. She has been allowed to patrol with the Mounted Watch, however, a fairly new development involving Watchmen on conventional horses without wings, who are used for fast response at street level and for crowd control duties at big events. As she and Sophie can both ride, they were deployed here on Saturday afternoon.

 _ **Wobbley Stadium, New Ankh. On a Saturday afternoon in November.**_

The line of mounted Watchmen sat their horses and simply Watched. The stream of foot-the-ball fans heading to the ground, loud, noisy, in the team colours of Dimwell FC, who were playing the Queen's Park Arrangers. So far it was good-natured noisy. The role of the Watch here was to keep the two sets of fans strictly apart, herding the Dimwell fans to one side of the stadium whilst the QP ARR fans were directed to the other side. They would also be kept segregated inside. Dimwell fans had a Reputation which they were proud of.

 _Nobody loves us – and we don't care!_

It was part of the Dimmers' thing, their war-cry, their reputation as the self-proclaimed hardest and toughest fans out. Fans of other sides were minded to challenge this. Hence the police presence at their games and the need to segregate. It had been discovered that a line of disciplined Watchmen on big horses simply advancing in line could clear a street very effectively: the standing orders in the event of conflict were to ride in there and get between the two mobs of potentially warring fans. And for the Gods' sake, not to let yourself get suckered into leaving the wide boulevards and big streets and chasing into narrow alleys, where the advantage of being on a big horse backed up by other big horses would be lost. People on horses who did this tended to find themselves in _bother,_ Mr Vimes had said, citing his own experience in the Lilac Revolution. And back _then_ , Vimes had added, warming to his theme, mounted men on our streets enforcing order were doing it for the wrong reasons, in the wrong ways, for the wrong people. _We will not be like them. Will we?_

Probationary Air Policewoman Rebecka Smith-Rhodes watched the fans, as she had been instructed, searching the throng for _Faces_. Iconograph slides had been shown during the briefing and descriptions going with the Faces had been read out. She was also looking for attitudes that suggested people likely to cause and incite trouble. Ringleaders, with immediate access to a ring.

Bekki looked up; at least two Watch brooms were up there, circling and Watching. Aerial observation. She sighed. That would be the next step: Air Police training, on a conventional broom for justnow. But at least four hooves were a step up from two feet. And she'd got a good horse. That was a consideration.

She scanned the passing throng of fans – _so many of them, and so few of us_ – and recognised Davey O'Hennigan, Shauna's brother. He glanced over at the line of Watchmen, seeing only the Filth on horseback **.(1)** Bekki let him pass on. Davey was alright, but today they were on opposite sides. Besides, he didn't have a record and wasn't a Face.

She wondered why she was starting to think like a Watchwoman, and supposed it was induced by the uniform. At least she had Sophie on her right, and on her immediate left, Sergeant Denson, who was in charge. He was keeping the two probationaries nearby to him. Bekki supposed he'd been briefed to keep the new girls under observation, partly because they were new, and mainly because they were destined for the Pegasus Service and were Assets to the City. Only seventeen women on the whole Disc could ride a Pegasus. Losing one on routine police work, she supposed, was to be avoided.

Denson was alright: he'd survived twenty-five years in a Venturi cavalry regiment and had volunteered for the Watch on leaving the Army, as he said, partly to stay in a horse-based job and mainly for the novelty of having a commanding officer who was actually competent. Sam Vimes had snapped him up for the Mounted Police straight away.

And just as Bekki was beginning to think this was just going to be routine, the trouble started…

* * *

There was an Incident at a foot-the-ball game where the Watch was performing crowd control duties.

This was the eleven-a-side code, by the way. At fifteen-a-side and in the new thirteen-a-side codes of foot-and-hand-the-ball, the violence largely occurs on the field, as Danie well knows. The spectators at a fifteen-a-side game are generally well behaved, there is no need to separate the fans (although people will group themselves with others of the same Nationality, so separation occurs naturally), and violence between supporters is rare. Therefore a Watch presence at fifteen-a-side games in minimal. The eleven-a-side code appears to be otherwise and generates strong tribal loyalties based on, ultimately, which street and district of the city the spectators live in.

Unrest and violence between fans happens at virtually every game and the Watch therefore has a hard job. An episode of unrest happened at the game policed by Rebecka and Sophie, where the Watch were targeted by a Firm of the Dimwell fans. A Firm is a term for a gang of Faces, apparently. These Faces tried to lure the mounted police presence into a fight, and one of them made the grave error of scattering caltrops in front of the police horses. A caltrop is a device designed specifically to injure a horse. Unfortunately for the scatterer, mounted police have Firm Views on these things and one of the policewomen present was Sophie Rawlinson. Who has even firmer views on those who would deliberately seek to injure horses.

I am told the sight of one of the most violent street gangs in the City running in panic from a single Watchwoman whose berserk button had just been pressed – well, it was memorable. Sophie had Rebecka riding alongside her, and batons were indeed drawn. Rebecka said she had a job to persuade Sophie to use minimal force in concluding the Arrest, and I believe her. The gentleman detained with a pocket full of caltrops will go into Watch detention when the Lady Sybil Free Hospital assesses him as fit for discharge, I believe. A second offender who tried to assault Bekki will have her bootmark on his chest for quite some time to come. I am proud: I taught her that strategy for dealing with somebody who attempts to un-horse you. Rebecka is a gentle soul who would shy at unprovoked attack on another, but she has no qualms about effective self-defence when attacked. I have taught her about effective self-defence.

Mr Vimes is proud of his two new recruits, but reminded Sophie that he prefers magic-users in the Watch to refrain from using magic when on duty (unless he knows in advance, and has approved it). Sophie's use of a spell to vaporise the caltrops in order to make the street safe for horses might have endangered innocent bystanders, he pointed out, had there actually been any innocent bystanders present to be inconvenienced. But he understands that when a Witch gets seriously angry, it tends to vent as magic. The trick, he said, for a Watchman, is to control the anger and use it effectively. I teach much the same to my own students.

Now what do I say about my other two daughters?

Famke's education at the Guild School proceeds. She is fortunate in that there is a teacher, who she respects and admires, who has seen her potential and is personally mentoring her. This makes many things much easier. Famke's attitude to School rules and regulations is much improved. Not because of threat or force or compulsion – I can see how she would respond to that. She is conforming of her own free will, because Miss Ethylene Glynnie has said she expects this from Famke and would be disappointed if there are any further major infractions. And because Famke so looks up to her mentor, she is conscientiously trying to give satisfaction. In return, Evvie Glynnie is providing additional tuition in subject areas Famke would not normally encounter until the fifth year of Study, the first year of the Black. Famke is aware this advanced tuition is conditional on good behaviour, and is therefore Being Good, insofar as she is capable.

General opinion in the staffroom is that we all have much to thank Miss Glynnie for, as she has found The Key.

And yes, Mother, I do remember our discussion about Famke, when you mildly (for you) remarked on a strong self-willed daughter who continually pushes the boundaries to see what she can get away with, who drives her mother to distraction, and who had to be sent away to a boarding school to tame her. You shook your head and said "Well, I can't see where or who she gets that streak from, Johanna, can you?"

I suppose I asked for that, Mother.

Famke, in the extraordinary circumstance in which she boards at a School a couple of miles across the City from her family home, is allowed Home on Wednesdays, after Sports Afternoon, for an evening meal here and family time. I encourage her to bring schoolfriends who may then join our family for dinner. She is also allowed to visit here on Saturdays if she is so minded, after School lessons in the morning and completion of her Prep. Miss Glynnie, her Housemistress, is accepting of this and permits overnight stays on the usual agreed basis. Famke then attends Kerk with the family the next day, where Heidi and I are obliged to ensure attendance by those of our students who are from Rimwards Howondaland. Kerk attendance, as you emphasise, is important and ensures habits of worship and deference not only to our Gods but to the customs and traditions of our Homeland. And yes, my whole family attend. It is important that Rebecka, Famke and Ruth grow up as Gods-fearing young meisies who are Boers as much as they are Morporkians.

Rebecka is in a unique position at Kerk.

Our Kerk holds to the position that Witches are an abomination in the eyes of the Gods. Pastor van Niedermaaier is perfectly aware of Bekki's training and occupation and I believe he would exclude her from attendance if he could. Sometimes I wonder if she is considering provoking a confrontation of this sort, so as to get her Octeday mornings free. (I have said to her to put up with it, for now, as she is a Boer, a Citizen, and has to be seen to be attending Kerk, as any irregularity might lead to her being deported from Howondaland before she has even arrived there).

But this Kerk is in Ankh-Morpork. Which has no laws against witches. And Witches tend to go where they like, just to make the point that they can go where they like. Besides, she is a Smith-Rhodes and that name confers a certain level of privilege. Van Neidermaaier knows this. He contents himself to the occasional barbed reference from the pulpit. Bekki sits in our family pew and glares back. A battle of wills is happening, I think.

Famke is aware she has to be suitably deferential, like the other pupils, but I suspect she has no time for van Neidermaaier. So far she has not misbehaved in Kerk. She tends to sit with the group of pupils from School, where I have primed sensible people like Mina Steenhuis and Luci van Tonder to keep an eye on her. There is, of course, Ampie duPris, a young man I have a lot of time for and who you personally approve of as a suitable young man to escort Rebecka. (Father: Ampie genuinely is a decent and a good-natured young man. I suspect you think this too, but you have to keep up the outward show, for justnow, of being the stern and watchful grandfather who isn't entirely convinced the young man's motives are good.) I like him and see no issues concerning his friendship with Rebecka. She could have chosen far worse. I fear when Famke's time comes, she will pick somebody entirely unsuitable purely for the devilment of it, and because she has the kind of personality that would relish selecting a Bad Boy, just to shock her parents. Besides, Bad Boys have an attraction to them. You will of course recall Hans Dreyer? I find it amusing to hear of his life since and the directions it took. And that, in a roundabout sort of way, he is coming closer to our extended family again. Trust Suki!

As for Ruth… well, her time will come, in its time. I do find myself wondering about her. But it is a long way in her future yet. Let me write about Ruth.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork, November**_

Ponder Stibbons frowned. It was a worried frown. It was a frown he had had several decades to perfect, ever since he had become first a student Wizard, then a graduate, and then a member of the University Faculty. It was the frown he frowned whenever one of the Faculty had an absorbing idea of the sort that made Ponder's nerves jangle with a foreboding of trouble to come.

And he found himself frowning it at his youngest daughter.

Ruth was curled up in a chair reading. It was a default position for her, when she was not making music, creating art or just experimenting with things to see what happened and how things worked.

It was this last that worried Ponder. _Experimenting with things to see what happened and how things worked_ was one of the character traits that pretty much defined a Wizard. He had this character trait in abundance. Johanna had it too. She applied it to things like Exothermic Alchemy and its practical applications in service of the Guild of Assassins. Wizards – especially the sort of Wizard who Ponder dealt with every day in the Faculty – also had a tendency to make things explode, in lots of literal and metaphorical ways. Unlike Johanna, their lack of common sense and basic self-preservation skills was legendary.

Ponder had survived into his forties because he had learnt early to take sensible precautions and evolve safety protocols. Where Johanna was concerned, her explosions were usually perfectly safe – for her. The Guild regarded her as its go-to person if an explosion needed to be gift-wrapped and delivered to a client, as part of a bespoke and perfectly tailored exclusive service. This actively required the Assassin doing the delivery to remain intact and undamaged afterwards, so as to claim the professional fee.

Ponder was worried that both kinds of inquisitive and exploring mind – the Wizard and the Assassin – had coalesced in their daughter. And that she might let her inquiring mind outstrip her sense of precaution and self-preservation.

And right now, he wasn't comforted to see that one of a stack of books she was reading, technical manuals in the main garnered from various libraries, was a biography of the artisan called Jeremy Clockson, who had vanished in mysterious circumstances a decade or two previously. Ponder knew enough to be aware that Clockson had not been the most mentally stable of people. He also had an idea of what had happened in the confused period leading up to Clockson's disappearance. He had dealt with some of the fall-out. **(2)**

"Sweetheart?" he said, cautiously. "You're finding that book very interesting?"

Ruth looked up and smiled, beatifically. Ponder felt this was unsettling: in moments like this she looked far older than nine. He reminded himself that this was universal with young girls. If you were a father or somebody like an uncle who spent lots of time around little girls, there were going to be those fleeting but timeless moments where, just for an instant, you glimpsed a far older woman looking out from a seven or eight or ten or eleven year old face. You got a brief vision of the adult woman the child would become. **(3)** Rebecka had been like this. Famke, too. He recalled he'd also seen it in the younger Mariella Smith-Rhodes, a girl he and Johanna had had parental responsibilities to in her time in Ankh-Morpork. _This is normal_ , he reminded himself.

"It is, Daddy." Ruth said. "I'm learning ever so much. But I still have to stop and look up some of the long words in the dictionary. And some of the special words aren't even in the dictionary, because they're special. _Technical."_

Ponder nodded. He made the mental leap to the partially dismantled mechanisms on the work-table in her room. Ruth was like that: she methodically took things apart to see how they worked. Lots of children did that. But after a couple of tries, Ruth could usually put them back together afterwards. She had clamoured for special tools, in the way little girls of her age might pester for dollies or toys. Ponder could usually find them at the university or the Thaumatalogical Park, and the house-goblins were useful too. Her mother had provided a few things acquired at the Guild. **(4)** Quite often a goblin or two could be seen in Ruth's room, either just watching in fascination, or actively helping. The fact Ruth had lately been asking people if they had any old clocks they could spare was worrying him. One neighbour had cheerfully provided an old clock, saying it had never worked right, so if Ruth could fix it, he'd be delighted, and if she couldn't, well, no harm done, as it was broken anyway.

Ruth had dismantled it with the aid of a goblin and – Ponder winced – the imps she had adopted. Then painstakingly cleaned and rebuilt it, taking her guidance from a technical manual on clocks and from sketches she had made, delivering it back to the neighbour, and shyly saying "I think you'll find it works now."

The neighbour had said, in bewilderment

"Ponder, it works _better_ , if anything. That little girl of yours is a genius."

Ponder was watching his girl genius.

Right now she was looking expectantly at her father. He cleared his throat.

"So. Ruth. What have you learnt from reading about Mr Clockson?"

"Well, daddy. I've learnt never to build a glass clock. I'm sure I _could_. But I think it would be the last thing I'd ever do, as there'd be no time to do anything else. Including switching it off again."

Ponder relaxed. He then listened to his daughter, who was asking difficult questions about the nature of Time and how you measured it and what it was for. She was asking intelligent questions. He didn't even hear those from his students. He appreciated she had started wondering about time and clocks whilst watching a metronome tick, counting the tempo as she played a keyboard. He also heard _why_ she had developed a sudden interest in clocks and time. And learning the reason, he relaxed and said "That's a really thoughtful idea, sweetheart. Bekki is going to really appreciate that, if you get it right."

They had discussed the idea, and Ponder had been intrigued. _Such a simple idea_ , he thought. _Why has nobody thought of this before?_ And then he realised nobody had really needed to think of it before, till now. _And every brilliant idea had to start somewhere, in a brilliant mind_ …

And it diverted her away from The Other Thing, which really worried him. She had asked to go back to the imp hatchery, and if she could select a couple more imps to help her with an idea she'd had, please, please, please, daddy?

And then he'd noticed the Guitar, the other sort of Guitar, that Mr Wheeldown the guitar maker had said she could have, as a thank you for the design work she'd done, people were starting to _buy_ those bass guitars we're making to your design, miss. Good luck to you if you can make that thing actually _work_ as a guitar, but if you do, can we get to make and sell them? And your mum should know, too. She _insisted_.

Ponder winced. He was agonising about whether to interfere or not.

But for now, his daughter's mercurially inventive mind was occupied on the Relative Time Measurement Problem. Which she looked like cracking.

* * *

Ruth is currently interested in clocks. I am satisfied these are not dangerous mechanisms, and tinkering with them places her in no risk. I am thankful this is occupying her attention, as this is understandable. (Ponder says there is one sort of clock which is very dangerous, but Ruth has read about it and accepts that is seriously dangerous and she has no interest in going there, which reassures me.) Her education still poses problems, as she is vastly ahead of the other children in her class and in some respects is more advanced than many of my own senior pupils and even, Ponder has said, ahead of many of his university undergraduates. At the same time she is also a girl of nine, and I must not lose track of that. She still has her favourite dollies, for instance, and there are areas of human experience which she is ignorant of, and which I am happy for her not to be aware of until she is of an appropriate age. Agnes Nitt has said the most difficult years for a girl with a little magic, not as much magic as Bekki but enough to be significant, are yet to come. Agnes says Ruth will not be a conventional Witch, if there is such a thing, but will find her own Way. This is as yet unclear to us all.

Gillian Lansbury, Mrs Stitched-Lansbury now, is giving personal tuition in Art still, and Ruth has accompanied her to advanced Art classes which Gillian supervises. I remain thankful she is attracting the right teachers to herself.

And now, I must talk about a most serious matter which is of grave importance to you both and indeed to our whole family I cannot disclose my sources of information, even in a letter which will reach you by secure private courier – you never know who might intercept it – but this news reaches me from some very highly placed and very reliable channels of information.

Father.

In the coming months, you must step up your patrols along the border and along the River. I earnestly advise you to speak to trusted people in the Volkskommando and ensure all members are fit and trained for possible conflict. Do this discreetly, so as not to alarm people unduly. Step up the informal training given to young boys – and girls! – in settlements and isolated farmsteads in the region. Review the evacuation plans for non-combatants in the event of hostilities. My brother Andreas is stepping up and taking over more and more of the duties of the Veldkornet, while you remain Kommandant; he will need to prepare too. This may be his testing time.

The danger time, as we all know, is not immediate. It will come in several months' time, in the months of June and July, when the River runs low and may easily be forded. I earnestly advise you to watch the river crossings between Kuiperskop, Lekkersing, Puitonderswater and Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein **(5).** The Zulus have crossed there before in strength, and my information are that at least one raid in force is planned for this time by a warlord who lacks imagination and original thought and if he chooses to hit here, he will pick a spot where armies have crossed before.  
This unoriginal warlord, however, still commands over three thousand spears. My information – and you must know the planned succession for the Empire - is that those dissident men who are unwilling to serve under a mere woman as Paramount Queen are trickling to his service. The Crown Prince Sinbothwe appears to be gathering force to himself, and hopes a successful raiding season against the ancestral foe will strengthen his case to seize the Paramount Throne from Princess Ruth following the death of their father. He is such a loyal brother indeed.

Watch for Sinbothwe's men scouting the river. Their impi distinctions are red and black head-dress feathers, with corresponding cords decorating the assegai staves, and red arm and ankle bands: their shields have alterbating black and white thong ties. If you see such men on the far bank, they will stand out from the local impi, who favour green and orange feathers and accessories.

My sources say the death of the old King is anticipated before June and the Prince plans to raid on hearing of his death, so as to weaken his sister before she has a chance to consolidate her position as Queen. We do not know as yet where he plans to raid. It could be anywhere from Smith-Rhodesia down to Natal. He would be a fool to attack on our stretch of the river as the regular garrisons of Fort Rapier and Lawkes' Drain are so close – but I am assured this Prince is a headstrong fool. And a dangerous one with thousands of spears at his command. I am also uncertain as to Princess Ruth's response to this threat, but based on my intimate knowledge of her – do not forget I taught her! – she will seek to prevent this. She needs to consolidate herself as Queen, and the last thing she will want is a major war with a neighbouring State, for one thing.

Hopefully there will be more information soon, and the person who is courier with this letter will be able to give you a further, private, verbal briefing. As she will no doubt say, politics is a pile of dirty stinking _govno_ , but she has to roll her sleeves up and pitch into it with a spade if there is no alternative.

By now, Pieter van der Graaf and even Uncle Charles may informally be aware, and are worth raising this matter with. I worry that official involvement may hasten combat and make war more likely. This has the potential to escalate and consume us all – some of our warlords are as incapable of original thought as any Zulu induna, and in time of trial will revert to the tried formula of hitting Them before They hit us. But Uncle Pieter is sensible, as you know, and will think before he acts. And Uncle Charles will not take any course of action that diminishes his profits. Also, it occurs to me to speak to Cousin Julian, who is sensible and ever more well-connected in government circles?

Be vigilant, Father.

The name of our family plaas is, after all, _Onverwacht_. **(6)**

With love to you both

Your oldest daughter

Johanna.

 _ **I keep promising myself… one more short chapter and it's done – for now…**_

* * *

 **(1)** The Air Watch were often referred to as The Flying Pigs, but after hard initial experience, not now where any Air Witch could hear it being said. In normal circumstances, Witches were disposed to come down hard on any disrespect. When the Witch was also Watch – this applied twice as hard. People tended not to do it twice and these days shied away from doing it once. Sam Vimes had been heard to remark that calling an Air Witch a flying pig, was at the very least Attempted Suicide. And Being Bloody Stupid With Malicious Intent.

 **(2)** See _**"Thief of Time"**_ and the inter-related novel _**"Night Watch**_ " by Terry Pratchett.

 **(3)** If you've seen this too, you will know. If you haven't – you will.

 **(4)** the strictly non-lethal ones.

 **(5)** This is a real place in South Africa and could be twinned with that place in Wales. It is too good not to put into my Discworld. The name means "Natural Spring Where Two Buffalos Were Shot Totally Dead with One Shot".

 **(6)** Afrikaans: vigilance, watchfulness.

 _ **Notes Dump:**_

 _ **In an earlier chapter, I moved a whole Feegle clan from "Europe" – the Central Continent – to "Africa" – Howondaland. The first Feegle, or so I thought, to travel outside the Central Continent and find a permanent home elsewhere on the Disc. Emigrant Feegle going to a new world and becoming distinctly different from, but still related to, the Old Mother Country - as Afrikaaners are to Holland and (to a lesser extent) Belgium.**_

 _ **I wondered if this might be stretching it a little…**_

… _**and in the current Fortean Times (FT37, October 2018) , I discovered a tantalising short snippet in a review of a book on Polynesian peoples. That the Maori of New Zealand have a folk legend of a very tiny people living in burrows and mounds who have a short way with people they do not like. The Peti of New Zealand - indigenous Little People who have always been there and who a wise martial race like the Maori treat with respect, and ensure are placated with gifts of fermented beverages.**_

 _ **I mean.**_

 _ **Kiwi Feegle.**_

 _ **Foggy Islands Feegle. Native Feegle.**_

 _ **The idea pleases me. I am visualising short wide folk with very interesting tattoo patterns and designs. Who were the**_ **first** _ **to dance the haka before a battle. Who are indeed warlike, prone to strong drink and quick to anger. Whose slang will be Kiwi and distinctive. (memo – look up a New Zealand slang and swearing page, as of this I know little, as yet.)**_

 _ **Now what are Maori witches called, and would a Chalk or Lancre-trained Witch emigrating to a steading or a sheep-farm in the Foggy Islands encounter, possibly when investigating why sheep go missing, and seeking to put a stop to it…**_


	57. Oorlogsdromme

_**Strandpiel 57**_

 _ **Oorlogsdromme**_

 _ **V1.1, revisions. Incorporating a kind suggestion concerning care of your crossbow.  
**_

 _ **Ideas:-**_

 _ **As always: during the working week, lots and lots and lots of inspiration particles about Things That Might Happen Next and how they could fit into the general plot.**_

 _ **Hoping to wrap up Book One of**_ **Strandpiel** _ **with at most one more chapter, having set up lots of threads to pick up in Book Two….**_

 _ **The City of the Ingyonamazi, The Zulu Empire:**_

Ruth N'Kweze sat in her own familiar chair, in her own familiar office, glad to be back from a few dreadfully interminable weeks spent at the Royal Kraal. Learning how to be a Queen was taking it out on her. There wasn't even a correspondence course in Queening, or a sympathetic female monarch nearby who she could ask to be apprenticed to. She was having to learn it as she went along. She wondered about making an approach to somebody who she thought was sensible but hardly knew; although she felt any approach to Queen Magrat of Lancre would be a terse one-word "HELP!" Hardly diplomatic…

Ruth breathed out. She turned to Sissi N'Kima. It would be a relief to be doing normal everyday things again, the sort she had been delegating to Sissi in her absence. Things like managing an Army and running a growing city. _Ordinary_ things.

"So what's new, Sissi?" Ruth asked. Her assistant smiled slightly, ran a finger around the rim of the surgical support collar she still wore around her neck, some time after the fight that had nearly crippled her, then consulted the clipboard she carried.

Ruth took in the sight of a Zulu indunala, dressed in conventional uniform and adornments as befitted her rank, who was otherwise consulting a clipboard of notes and issues to be brought to her employer's attention. It was, Ruth thought, a nice visual metaphor for the changes she was bringing about in Zulu society. The best of both continents, the Centre, and Howondaland. _And her neck should have completely healed by now, after Igorina's surgery. She shouldn't be wearing that collar. If things aren't knitting as they should, I'm going to have to talk to Igorina about it. Maybe with the other thing…_

Sissi cleared her throat, then raised an issue. Ruth frowned.

"Fifty-seven." she said, thoughtfully.

"Fifty-seven." Sissi confirmed.

Ruth steepled her fingers. She should not have been surprised about this. The feasting and celebrations after Nipho's presentation and Naming As The Heir had lasted long into the following day. She reflected that she should be surprised there were not going to be more, in fact. Her own impis were female; Denizulu had brought a lot of fit and healthy male soldiers to her city. And now, a month or two down the line, she was being confronted with an inevitable consequence.

"Send word to my husband." Ruth said. "Permission is granted for fifty-seven women of my impis to marry. It is right there should be a mass wedding. The husbands will of course need to be present."

"Which means another mass celebration afterwards." Sissi said. "And then a month or two after _that_ …"

"And in a few months' time." Ruth said. "how many future soldiers for the Empire will arrive into this world?"

"Forty-three, at the last confirmed count." Sissi said. Ruth nodded.

"Women who are pregnant and begging leave to marry. Write a decree for me, Sissi: Lionesses who are to have cubs may step down from the active impi with honour and my blessing. But let it be known they will go to the reserve impi and are charged with keeping up their skills and fitness and are subject to recall. You know, the usual. Oh, and the children, if daughters, are mine to claim for this impi. They train in the youth impi when old enough. Women wishing to marry who are not yet pregnant: they may have leave to travel to their husband's family, as is custom. But afterwards they return here to resume duty."

"I'm on it." Sissi said. "By the way, recruitment's up and we should be able to cover for the losses. How was the Royal Kraal, by the way?"

"Unspeakable." Ruth said. "I'm of a mind to move everything here when I succeed. If I'm Queen, people come to me in a place of my choosing. Not the other way around."

"Indaba at three, Highness?"

Ruth nodded.

"Get everybody here. Lots to discuss."

 _ **Furtive Forth Street, Ankh-Morpork**_

Furtive Forth Street was an otherwise unremarkable side street, not nearly narrow enough to be called an alley but stretching it if you were to call it a street, just off the Street of the Accountants. Space for clerical and accountancy firms in the city centre was limited: a relatively new business had to take what it could. It was well-kept, well-swept, and in the manner of financial districts everywhere in the Multiverse, exuded a discreet sense of more prosperity going on than the occupants would care to acknowledge with mere surface impressions. Small accountancy businesses and firms were based here, each with its own client list. SR Management Services was one among many, advertising itself with a discreet brass plaque just by the door. Next to the ones that confirmed Thieves' Guild dues were paid up and that the Guild of Assassins took a discreet interest in the ongoing security of the place.

Just inside the door, Shauna O'Hennigan manned the reception desk. She was smartly dressed in a fairly new business suit – surprisingly smartly, to the surprise of those who had hitherto only ever seen her approximately filling out a school uniform, which, in the approved Official School Rebel style, she had taken care to look only just on the acceptable side of rebelliously scruffy.

Shauna sighed and took care that the copy of _Modern Young Woman_ was concealed underneath the desktop blotter. This kind of thing was understood – Claire in the main office was a devotee of _**Quirm-Match**_ _–_ but it was best not to be too blatant about it in front of the customers, Shauna, you have to look professional.

She considered her new life. Doctor Johanna had ensured she was kitted out on expenses, and that had been a nice touch. She conceded the clothes really did look good. Sek knew how much it had cost. _Well, not entirely true. I could look it up. Claire does the overheads of running this place._

Shauna considered the pros and cons of leaving school and working for a living. She got four dollars a week, she reminded herself. Twice what the usual run of jobs for a sixteen-year old school leaver might usually pay. It was worth putting up with, for four dollars a week. But feck, it could get tedious. Staffing the desk, sending Clacks message out as directed, receiving incoming mail and clacks flimsies and seeing the right people in the back office got their mail, receiving clients, seeing they got tea or coffee as per preference, being professionally nice to people, smartening up her language – Doctor Johanna had been _insistent_ about that - not exactly the most glamorous introduction to the exciting world of business and finance.

And the people in the main offices. They were Doctor Johanna's former Assassins' School students, mainly. Ones who left after the general education and didn't go on to become Assassins proper. Shauna considered that. Four years mainly spent getting an education in the usual things. You could then leave the Assassins' School and go on to other schools and colleges, rather than spend another three years learning all the _other_ stuff the Assassins taught. The people who did the other work here had gone on to do things like Law, and Accounts, and Tax. Doctor Johanna had kept in touch and when she set this place up, had asked a few people if they'd like to work for her, bring their skills to her.

They were okay, Shauna considered, even if none of them had been brought up in slums in Dimwell and their backgrounds were _different_ to hers. That was a bit of a gulf to bridge.

She had asked her employer about this. Doctor Johanna had considered this for a moment and had asked if this worried her.

"Well… faith, they're all from what you might call better backgrounds and so on…" Shauna had said. "Don't get me wrong, they don't look down on me or anything, but it makes me feel like I stick out like a sixth finger or something. Slum kid from Dimwell."

Doctor Johanna had smiled broadly.

"A _streetwise_ slum kid from Dimwell." she had said. "You weren't _socially edventeged_. You didn't go to an expensive prep school end then to the Essessins' School. Your beckground is different. You bring something different to the office. I want somebody in there who hes a different way of looking et things. I believe you will see things they will overlook. Thet is for the good."

And, two or three months on and still largely stuck on the front desk, Shauna wondered when she'd get to do other things, move on from being the Office Junior. Claire, the Quirmian woman, had turned out to be okay. Shauna had been in awe of the impeccably dressed and austere-looking Quirmian woman in black, the one who radiated a sort of capable efficiency, the one who appeared to be, in some indefinable way, in charge. She was the only one in there who was a full Assassin, the only one who had gone the distance and graduated. Shauna reasoned there had to be _one_. Shauna had resolved, on first impressions, to do everything as well as possible and on time, so as not to invoke Claire's displeasure. She felt this would not be advisable.

But Claire had, in small increments, started showing support and even a sort of mentoring friendliness to Shauna. It all went to prove that appearances deceived. Claire had approved that Seven-Handed Sek's had taught a basic conversational Quirmian to its girls, and had begun passing over her copy of _**Quirm-Match**_ to Shauna to look at. It was a lively blend of news, gossip, celebrity profiles, and nice big illustrated iconographs with minimal captions. Like _**Tepidity**_ or _**Wotcha!,**_ only in Quirmian. Shauna appreciated the gesture. Her Quirmian was improving, too.

Claire had turned out to live on Spa Lane too. Shauna had wondered where she had seen her before. Apparently Number Four Spa Lane was owned by Madame Emmanuelle, Doctor Johanna's neighbour. Madame Emmanuelle, who Bekki called Auntie Emmie, and the mother of those maddeningly gorgeously good-looking lads Manni and Pippi, rented it out to people. Claire explained that La Comptesse, one of her former teachers, knew how hard it was to find an affordably-rented place in Ankh-Morpork and she was kind enough to rent cheaply to fellow Quirmians in the big city, preference given to Assassin graduates with jobs at the Guild. There were eight currently living there, Claire had explained, all of us Assassin graduates. **(1)**

"Ah." Claire had said. She kindly patted Shauna's arm. "I believe, _ma petite_ , you may be finding it irksome to be the office junior, _la mignonne._ Look upon it in this manner. Doctor Smith-Rhodes does nothing without reason. I suspect you are being tested right now. This is her way of getting you to apply self-discipline and resolve to your working life. To learn good habits. To perform fairly boring and repetitive tasks well and on time and without complaint, for however long it takes. My advice to you is to stick with it and endure. I believe she may have other things planned for you, but this to you is the, how shall we say, _c'est l'ananas dans le bol de fruits_ _."_

Shauna grinned.

"The pineapple in the fruit bowl."

Claire smiled.

"I could never remember the Morporkian words for fruits. Your task, _cherie_ , is to eat the whole pineapple. Underneath that, the tastier fruits. _Framboises, peut-etre."_

Shauna understood this. She then offered to set up a tea-tray.

Later in the day, a uniformed Watchwoman walked in.

Shauna decided on a little bit of dumb insolence to lighten the day; visits from the Watch needed to be announced. Even this visit. She spoke into the intercom, then grinned to herself as Jeremy, the principal accountant, came racing into the reception area. He had the usual look of well-groomed worry that an accountant always has on his face when told the police have arrived. Shauna liked seeing this.

"How can we help you, Officer?" he inquired.

The Watchwoman nodded to him.

"This isn't a business call, sir." she said, politely. Jeremy relaxed.

"Or else Inspector Pessimal would be with me." she added. Shauna and the watchwoman looked at his face. This sort of thing lightened the day up. A visit from Inspector Pessimal, as every accountant knew, was bad news.

Then Rebecka Smith-Rhodes grinned at her old schoolfriend. They'd spent schooldays winding up their teachers like this. It was nice to revisit old skills.

"Got an hour off for lunch." she said. "If they can spare you for an hour. Up for it, Shauna? My treat."

 _ **Onverwacht Plaas, Piemberg, Rimwards Howondaland**_.

Captain Olga Romanoff accepted the courtesy iced tea from her hostess and stood back as the letter she had delivered was read. Knowing broadly what it said, she looked impassive as Barbarossa and Agnetha Smith-Rhodes shared the news from Ankh-Morpork. They shared the news concerning their grand-daughters with approval, laughter and the occasional shaken head. Then Barbarossa sat up straight and roared with surprise. He read to the end. Agnetha looked suddenly serious and grave.

Her husband strode to the door and onto the _stoep_ , and began roaring commands. Olga glanced out of the window; farm workers, both white and black, were running to do things, the easy pace of the day suddenly stepping up by several orders of magnitude. After a while, a horseman was seen galloping off. A couple of the farm goblins were running to the Baas. Olga heard him dictating a clacks message. Her Vondalaans was not perfect, but she heard snippets, names, and the instruction _ride here. Indaba. Four o'clock._

Agnetha shook her head.

"I'm not going to esk you if it's true or not." she said. "If Johanna is convinced and she is telling us to prepare, thet makes it _definite_."

Olga wasn't surprised to see the older woman go to the weapons rack, select a crossbow, and test the mechanism. This was a frontier outpost: everybody fought, if there was a need. Weapons were immediately to hand, for one thing. And she was looking at the mother of Johanna and Mariella Smith-Rhodes, she reminded herself.

Agnetha raised the weapon to her shoulder and sighted it out of the window towards an imagined target. Olga recognised competence and experience, and decided she'd fat rather be standing alongside Agnetha and not in front of her, in the event of a need to fire any actual shots.

She nodded. Olga had seen that sort of nod before. It meant trouble for somebody. Then the weapon was returned to the rack. Olga remembered long-ago weapons training, from a forester who worked for her father who was charged with ensuring an ample supply of game for hunting and for the table, and who in winter sought to keep wolves and bears at a respectful distance. _It is a common error, my Lady, to test the mechanism of a weapon by dry-firing it with no bolt. Seek to avoid this, as it stresses the mechanism. Only fire it if there is a quarrel loaded, and seek to fire it safely at a chosen target._

"I think I hed better sharpen my machete." Agnetha remarked, to nobody in particular. "Heven't seriously used it in years. It's been _quiet_ around here. Until now."

Then she turned to Olga.

"When Andreas hes stopped running around being the Kommandant end he comes back indoors. You hed better tell us what you know, Olga. We need to make a _plen_."

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork**_

Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons made a miniscule adjustment to a cog-wheel and tested the mechanism again. Wheels clicked and the hands on the main clock-face turned. A group of imps clustered on her worktop watched with grave focused intent. Ruth turned to a notepad that was full of complicated-looking calculations, and compared what she read on the pad to what the mechanism in front of her was telling her. She re-checked her calculations. She frowned. They didn't teach this sort of maths in School, or at least not to a class of nine-year old girls. She'd had to work a lot of it out for herself, from first principles and with a little help from Daddy. But she was sure of her calculations. Therefore the Device needed a little more fine-tuning. Getting the transmission right, and the interplay between the main device and all the other things slaved to it, was going to take a little more work. Maybe a five-eighths cogwheel with eleven teeth on it, as opposed to twelve, to keep the gearing ratio as accurate as it could be… and a wormgear there, longer and with a closer spiral…

She sighed and put the Device down. A lot of the things she needed couldn't be bought in shops. She was having to improvise, to adapt other things, and that was going to take work. She'd have go back to first principles and maybe even create a cogwheel with eleven regularly spaced teeth, from scratch. _A brass disc of the right size and some delicate work with a fine needle file, or something. Or maybe I could etch it in acid, that would be faster, but Mummy doesn't like me playing with chemicals._

"Not quite right." she said. "It's losing seven minutes between the Hub and the Rim at Backspindle and that's making a plus or minus of up to seventeen minutes throughout the Great Year, so it's only going to tell accurate relative time four times a Great Year. I'm going to have to think about this."

Ruth put the mechanism down and decided to do something else for a while. She smiled at some of the new imps she'd got from Daddy.

"Ritchie? Jimmy? Let's have another go at the Guitar, shall we? We'd better do this downstairs in the music studio. People complain when it gets loud."

Ruth and her attendant Imps descended to the music studio. An advantage for Ruth, in that her room was built above the old mews garage, was that when the coaching mews had been rebuilt as a music studio, a spiral staircase had been added into the design that directly connected the two. She could therefore move freely between her two passions, unseen and unsupervised by her parents.

And after a while there was indeed noise, but inside a soundproofed music studio. Her parents had been _definite_ about the soundproofing.

 _ **Necros Coffee Shop, Peach Pie Lane, Ankh-Morpork**_

Several members of Shauna's Gang, now cast into the world of work, met for a sandwich and a coffee in Necro's. The former convent schoolgirls compared notes about their respective post-education destinations and traded tales of woe.

"Not so bad." Shauna O'Hennigan said. "They might be the sort of book-smart people who wouldn't last five minutes on a street in Dimwell, but they're okay, I suppose. Just got to be nice to the clients and try not to fecking say "feck" when I talk to them, then send the feckers upstairs to discuss their investment portfolios with the suits. How about you, Joyce?"

Joyce shrugged. She was doing a post-school training diploma course with the Guild of Seamstresses. People tended to look sideways at her when she said this. But, as she said, people tended to go into a Guild with a family connection and nobody gives you odd looks if your dad's a plumber and you go into plumbing, so what's so strange? Mum's a Seamstress, Mrs Palm thinks I've got the aptitude, so I'm doing a course at the Technical School on Sheer Street.

"Well, they always need people with the right skills." Joyce said. The expression on her face hinted that she was daring people to look funny at her. "You know. Administration. Management. The bars and the catering operations don't run themselves. Procurement. Somebody's got to buy in and replace the jiggly little leather things, and who do you think prices out the racks and chains in the bondage dungeons?"

"Estates and facilities management." Bekki said. "If you run a House of Repute, somebody has to see the roof doesn't fall in. And you can't have people suing for personal injury if the rack in the BDSM dungeon falls apart."

"Exactly right." Joyce said. "And as I keep pointing out to people, Mrs Palm stipulates a minimum age of eighteen for anyone wanting to do the other thing. Doesn't look right if she takes sixteen-year olds straight out of school for that. Which is a relief as I'm in two minds on that. Haven't ruled it out, though. Mum does alright at it."

There was a pause.

"So how's life in the Peelers?" Shauna asked.

Bekki smiled.

"It keeps me off the streets." she said.

"Or flying over them." Janey pointed out. She was now at the Lady Sybil, training for nursing, specifically working with deaf people. Janey had grown up interpreting the world for a deaf mother; she was good at this.

Bekki stroked the brand-new Arm Of Service patch on her tunic. It denoted a pig, on a broomstick, wearing a pointy hat. AMCWAP underneath stood for "Ankh-Morpork City Watch Air Police". The Air Watch had agreed that if they were going to be called the Flying Pigs, they should seize the phrase and make it _theirs._ Bekki knew that within a few weeks she would be passed out with another Arm of Service patch: this would denote a stylised flying horse, rearing on a blue ground, with the motto "HUC VENIMUS, IN QUOLIBET" **(2)** underneath. The Pegasus Service. Only seventeen women wore that badge. It made them an élite within the Air Police. The regular Air Watch was a stage on the journey for her.

"I like it." Bekki said. "I get to fly a lot."

She indicated the Watch-issue broomstick leaning on the wall behind them. She carried a pocket omniscope in her tunic; if it sounded its alarm buzz, she knew, it meant responding to the call and getting airborne in seconds. Her father and Victor Tugelbend had helped adapt this bit of technomancy for the Watch. At the moment the shaped fragments, originally from a shattered omniscope mirror, and the happy accident that had enabled the wizards to realise that the fragments would forever remain connected to each other **(3),** were rare and precious. Only selected Watch personnel had got them, and the wizards were temperamentally opposed to breaking another mirror to create more. But every pilot in the Air Police had one. With the help of the university's extelligence, the thinking machine HEX, each Air Police and Pegasus Service pilot could talk directly to a duty Watchman in the Control Tower at the Air Station. Bekki had been told, when hers had been issued, that there would be trouble if she lost it. Olga Romanoff had been very definite about that. She wondered if the pocket omniscopes worked over seriously long distances. She hadn't been told that yet.

"Of course, going any further means passing a few more training courses." Bekki said. She shuddered. The thing about the Pegasus Service wasn't so much the long-haul flights. She and Boetjie were bonded. She loved and trusted her mount. It wasn't the diplomacy thing, although she and Sophie were soon going to be sent for interview with Vetinari so he could assess his two new pilots.

It was this business of working out what the bloody time was going to be when she got there. It was a blind spot. She just couldn't get her head round it.

"Not arrested any of me brothers yet?" Shauna asked. "You're slipping, Bekki!"

They fell back into banter and high spirits.

 _ **The City of the Ingyonamazi, The Zulu Empire:**_

"I addressed my men. Impi by impi."

Ruth looked at her husband, with unforced respect and, she was now forced to admit, with a little love. General Denizulu marshalled an army of eight thousand. He was possibly the single most powerful military leader in the Empire, and Ruth was very grateful his loyalties were to her. Between them they were absolutely sure of an army of at least twelve thousand. And there were lesser indunas and princes who had signalled which way their loyalties would fall in the event of conflict; indirectly they could call on fifteen thousand more, even if some of those loyalties were suspect and uncertain.

"I gave my men a choice. If there were men in my command who sincerely believe they cannot serve a woman as Paramount, or men who have searched their hearts and can no longer serve a General who gives his loyalties to a woman as Paramount, then they are free to leave, now, with honour and without censure. Collect your families and you have till midnight tomorrow to depart from my service. I cut the bonds."

"And how many chose to go?" Ruth inquired.

Denizulu shrugged.

"One hundred and ninety-four. To be honest I expected more. Afterwards I made all men of all ranks swear a new oath of loyalty. To Mpandwe for as long as the king lives. Then to his commanded successor, the Queen-Regent, and then to Prince Nipho, the Heir. All swore without hesitation."

And my brother's ranks swell by another two hundred." Ruth said.

Denizulu shrugged.

"This way I lose men who are not mine to command. My ranks are strengthened because the whisperers and the malcontents are gone. And, Great Wife, I took the chance to insert into their number several who are still loyal to me. The Crown Prince will receive them without adequately checking. I will receive reports from the heart of his camp. He will accept a senior indunula who was publicly seen to have an argument with me, after which I expelled him from my indaba. That man will no doubt be taken into your brother's indaba. But he remains one of my most loyal men. And he will then report to me on what he hears."

Ruth smiled.

"Thank you, husband." she said, sincerely. She turned to another of her commanders.

"Zoya. Your cavalry range far and wide in training?"

Her cavalry commander grinned back.

" _Da_ , Princess. My horsewomen go to where good grazing is to be found, and in this season the best grass is to be found near rivers. While the horses graze in this season, that which passes for winter here, they will patrol and admire the scenery. If the men of your brother's armies are also to be seen along the river, they will find them and send word."

Ruth smiled at the Cossack woman who commanded and trained her cavalry. Zoya Zlatovachniya boasted that the women in her command were not _quite_ as good as Cossacks, but they were getting there. They could get a message back from the border country to Ruth inside a day. Relay stations and fresh horses had been strategically located.

"If they get better, and they will, I may need to send petition to the Council of the Atamans and beg recognition for a new Horde to be welcomed to the Cossack people." Zoya added.

Ruth smiled. She'd heard about Cossacks. People who fought like that and who thought like that – and she had a couple of dozen Cossacks now, training and leading her cavalry – were good to have.

She turned to the other white-skinned officer in her command.

"How's the artillery coming along, Marianne?"

Marianne de Meniere, energetic and Quirmian and a product of a School of Military Engineering, grinned widely.

"I assure you, _ma reine_ , that the new Scorpions will be fit for active service inside a month."

Ruth smiled. A Scorpion was a large ballista, a super-sized crossbow. She had got the idea partly from seeing the weapon carried by Sergeant Detritus of the Watch, and had also seen what a _single_ automated crossbow had done to a charging impi at the Battle of the Tobacco Farm. Ruth could now deploy nine of them, in addition to the other things Marianne had designed, built and trained people to use. And the best of it was that the Zulu Empire's last attempt to employ any sort of artillery had ended up as such an unmitigated disaster, in every possible way, that the Empire had never seriously tried again **.(4)** Until now. She had a massive head-start. Even if other warlords, having seen what her cavalry had been capable of in battle, were now trying to raise their own. _Let them. It takes years to make good cavalry. I've had a few years._

Chakki N'golante cleared her throat. Ruth looked over to her.

"Chakki?" she invited.

"There's an obvious danger, Ruth. We know from certain sources that an obvious attack route into White Howondaland is along the Ulunghi Bend. We can also be sure that word has been passed to people on the other side, who also have an interest in maintaining the peace there, for them to step up their patrolling and observing."

Chakki didn't spell it out. _People on the other side_ meant the Smith-Rhodes family, a power on the White Howondalandian side who had their family home there. Ruth had ensured they'd been tipped off, in fact.

"They're going to be looking for anything out of the ordinary on our side of the river. For the first time, our cavalry are going to be seen there. Only in small patrol groups. But the whites know what we did in Muntab. That's going to worry them."

Ruth nodded.

"Yes. We need to make _absolutely_ sure _we_ don't end up sparking anything off. Or provoking them to attack us. That's important. I need to get a message out – through intermediaries, obviously – that _my_ cavalry are just there to patrol and watch. It's not a prelude to my starting anything aimed at them. There are cavalry regiments close by on their side, aren't there? Lancers, as I recall. Light, fast, deadly and generally officered by hot-headed idiots. Zoya. Stay on our side at all times. And no first strike. You can fight if they attack you, obviously. But try to avoid that."

" _Da."_ Zoya said, nodding agreement.

And at the end Ruth was thinking that she really, really, needed to spend some time with Nipho. Just to be a mother, nothing else. But before that, there was one last thing to do…

"Sissi. Your neck is taking longer to heal than anyone expected?"

Sissi ran her finger around the inside of the collar again. Ruth watched her movement.

"Yes. Igorina and Igor told me necks are tricky. They need special care and take longer."

Ruth was quiet for a few moments. Then she said

"Look, it's just turning into December. Between you and me, Father is going down faster than people thought. It's likely I'll be Queen sometime between June and August."

There was another silence while both pondered what this meant.

Ruth broke the silence. She was looking out of the window, Sissi noted. In the direction of the Royal Kraal. Then she turned to Sissi again.

"By June, the rivers run low. They can be forded on foot. That's when it's all going to start happening, as my dear brother is not likely to make any move until Father is safely dead. Which means we've got possibly six or seven months. Chakki can handle things here for that period but I _will_ need you back then. And _you_ need to be near the best medical help in the world. I'm sending you to Ankh-Morpork, Sissi. You're going back to School again."

 _ **Onverwacht Plaas, Piemberg, Rimwards Howondaland**_.

The group of people gathered at the Smith-Rhodes plaas, mainly male but with a scattering of women, looked grim and resolved. Olga Romanoff assessed them. Fairly typical frontier farmers, characteristic Boers, dressed in variations of what was almost a uniform in varying colours of khaki-drab, some wearing bandoliers of spare crossbow bolts. The youngest were in their twenties, the oldest must have been getting on for eighty, the average age late forties or fifties. Olga was in no doubt that in defence of their homes and families, they'd be formidable fighters. A similar sort of rag-tag citizens' army had once taken on Ankh-Morpork in its still-mighty Imperial decline. And won, hands-down. The slapping they'd delivered had resonated around the whole Disc and one by one, Ankh-Morpork's residual Imperial possessions had fallen from its grasp. Olga reflected that these people had collapsed an Empire. They were not to be disregarded.

She had listened, only imperfectly grasping the Vondalaans, as Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes had passed on the news he'd received from a very well-placed daughter in Ankh-Morpork. The men, the accepted officers and leaders of the _Volkskommando_ , had listened intently and silently.

Olga had grasped the _volkskommando_ way instantly. It was a sort of military democracy in which the two most senior members were elected by their peers after much debate and argument, often fuelled with beer and klipdrift. After that, the _Kommondant_ and his _Veldskornet_ were as absolutely in charge as any regular army colonel and major. In the case of the Piemberg _volkskommando_ , these two roles were taken by Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes and his oldest son Andreas, a man built along the same lines as his father, whose hair and full beard were still the vivid family red. He was known as Baby Barbarossa to distinguish him from his father.

Olga felt at home here. It was like being among Cossacks, who elected their Ataman and the lesser Hetmans, often amongst much vodka-fuelled debate, but then followed their chosen leaders with absolute fidelity.

" _Mevrou_ Ceptain Olga." Andreas said, with a mixture of respectful deference and familiarity, as if not sure how to deal with her. He was speaking Morporkian, which she appreciated. "I know this information came from my bigsister in Ankh-Morpork. I know Johanna hes good sources of information. I must esk you: are there things you are able to speak, which she felt she could not commit to paper? She hinted es such."

"Ja." Olga said. "It is good information. I am not absolutely free to say from where. But I believe it to be correct in every respect. Between those of us in this room, I may say this, and based on my personal acquaintance with her I know this to be truth: the Princess, who is soon to become a Queen, is to be trusted. She has no intention of war with your country."

Olga paused, and added:

"Excuse me. I am here in the uniform of Ankh-Morpork and I represent Ankh-Morpork here. That also shapes what I may officially say and I hope this is understood. But speaking in my married name of Olga de Kockamaainje I should correct that last sentence: I believe, honestly so, that the soon-to-be-Queen has no intention of invading or provoking war with _our_ country. This became my country when I married a Boer. It is definitely the country of my son and daughter in our home outside Pratoria."

This statement provoked smiles and words of approval. Olga relaxed a little: they'd hear her out now.

"This nation is built on successive layers of immigrants from elsewhere, after all. It welcomes people from outside. It welcomed _me_. I am happy about that. But my job is to work for the government of Ankh-Morpork. And this I must tell you: Lord Vetinari is aware of a potentially serious situation on this border. He understands that a people who are attacked inside their own country by an enemy have a right to defend themselves. But he asks: do not let this become an all-out war that can destroy everybody, Zulu and Vondalaander alike. _Apply restraint._ "

There was a silence. Olga wondered how these people were likely to respond to Ankh-Morpork making suggestions as to how they should deal with a threat. They'd once fought a fairly conclusive war to point out Ankh-Morpork could not direct their lives…

"Sy is reg." a voice said. _She's right_.

Olga relaxed. It was Agnetha Smith-Rhodes who had spoken. And these men listened to her.

"If it comes to it, we _fight_." Agnetha said. "Es we have done many times before. End whet follows is the usual round of raid end counter-raid, until we get tired of it and fall back to the border. Then we bury our dead, end we rebuild burnt-out farmhouses, end we support a new crop of widows end orphans. _Ja_ , we fight if we are ettecked. But speaking for the women end the children of our land, we cen do without the things thet heppen efter thet first fight. There will be _restraint_."

Olga noted the other women in the room, women who had also fought Zulus and were therefore entitled to be here, nodding their support. The men were getting this.

"Lord Vetinari also, respectfully, suggests the following ideas for your consideration. That for now, this remains unofficial and is dealt with by the concerned citizens of the border area. Who he is aware constitute a citizens' militia for active self-defence. Now is a good time to train newcomers in the disciplines of patrolling and observing, for instance, and for existing personnel to refresh their skills. He suggests a Zulu corps of three thousand spears is hard to conceal and may be visible from some distance away. Observation posts in the hills overlooking the river may prove useful. If such an army approaches _then_ is the time, perhaps, to involve the regular armed forces…"

Vetinari had also said that the moment a large regular military force starts getting paranoid about the possibility of an invasion, it will make its presence known, and there is a danger its commanders might either jump at shadows, or else consider that if _we_ hit _them_ first, preferably on their side of the border, it will pre-empt a threat. Generals do so like to find reasons to justify their positions. And if a total of four thousand regular White Howondalandian soldiers abruptly leaves its barracks and advances to its border, that is the sort of thing that might worry the Zulu Empire into responding. These things, Captain Romanoff, have a habit of escalating out of control, even if the political leadership on both sides genuinely does have good intentions. So let us try to keep them out of the equation for as long as possible, if we can.

Olga carried on steering the debate, as Vetinari had advised. It seemed like the best thing to do.

 _ **Out of time. One last chapter to follow.. damn, I keep saying this. But just to keep the flow going and to set up Book Two, where Bekki goes to Howondaland and eventually walks into trouble….**_

* * *

1 **(1).** Yes. Another Homage to an obscure (outside France) TV show: long-running cult-status French sitcom _ **Les Filles d'a coté**_ , "the Girls Next Door". Taking the three Filles, Claire, Magalie and Fanny, and their male counterparts, and re-casting them as Assassins… let's see where this one goes. (Next door are Daniel and Marc, the gym they attend is run by an affable Camp Gay called Gérard, and there is the comic relief provided by Georgette and Charly. Let's make all eight Assassins in a house-share situation…)

 **(2)** Seriously dog-latin; "WE GO ANYWHERE, ANY TIME"

 **(3)** see _**The Last Hero**_ , by Terry Pratchett

 **(4)** to my tale _**Gap Year Adventures**_ , in which the Zulus discover fire and water do not mix easily.

 _ **Notes Dump:**_

 _ **I like this: found the Wikipedia article on S and L space. I'll spare you the maths, but it begins:**_

In mathematics, **S-spaces** and **L-spaces** are certain topological spaces, believed to be dual to each other in some sense. An S-space is a regular topological space that is hereditarily separable but is not a Lindelöf space. An L-space is a regular topological space that is hereditarily Lindelöf but not separable.

It had been believed for a long time that S-space problem and L-space problem are dual i.e. if there is an S-space in some model of set theory then there is an L-space in the same model and vice versa – which is not true.

 _ **We all know about L-Space. If you don't, re-read your Discworld. In other fics I speculated that there is an S-Field that connects all staffrooms and teachers' lounges in all the multiple dimensions of space and time. I now have the theoretical proof…**_

 _ **One of those random ideas. In Discworld magic, the eighth son of the eighth son of a wizard is a Sourceror. So what is the name – and the possible talent – of the eighth daughter of the eighth daughter of a Witch? This is going to bug me. The idea is that if Nanny Ogg has had fifteen children, what if number eight was a girl (and therefore a natural witch) who then went on to have at least eight of her own – and number eight was a daughter too. How would the Sourceror thing work with Witches?**_


	58. Speurwerk

_**Strandpiel 58**_

 _ **Speurwerk**_

 _ **V1.2, tidying for the usual reasons. This will come.**_

 **Ideas:-**

 _ **As always: during the working week, lots and lots and lots of inspiration particles about Things That Might Happen Next and how they could fit into the general plot.**_

 _ **Hoping to wrap up Book One of**_ **Strandpiel** _ **with at most one more chapter, having set up lots of threads to pick up in Book Two…. with thanks to reader FinnoSwede for correcting my Finnish grammar!**_

 _ **Bitterfontein, the Caarp Country, Rimwards Howondaland. January.**_

Bekki was getting used to the abrupt dislocation as Wee Archie Aff The Midden completed the ritual movement of the crawstep, and Feegle Space popped out of existence. Boetjie also accepted this as perfectly natural and nothing to be concerned by; the steady wingbeat did not falter once, as ordinary everyday things of the Discworld popped into place around them. Bekki blinked twice to clear her head, and sought to orientate herself. Time had no meaning in Feegle Space: but she reckoned probably twenty minutes had passed, relatively speaking, since her mother and father and sisters had kissed her goodbye in the back garden of Spa Lane. She remembered Dorothea the cook pressing a package of snacks for the journey on her, and Claude wishing her a safe journey, in his dignified butlerian way.

"Aye. Looks like we're here, Mistress." Wee Archie said. From his place in the mane, he looked at her anxiously. Wee Archie's hit-and-miss navigation was improving, she conceded.

"But is it the _right_ here?"

Grindguts The Destroying Demon had accompanied her. He had no faith in Wee Archie's navigation skills, and said so, frequently.

Bekki smiled tolerantly as Feegle and Demon bickered. She felt the cool clement Howondalandian night around her as she circled Boetjie, seeking to orientate herself. She knew Wee Archie had at least found the right _country_. This was an advance and a step in the right direction. And it was definitely Howondaland. She couldn't see much of the landscape, possibly two thousand feet below. There would be human settlements down there, she knew, and somewhere a town, more than one. _And, damn, it's night here. Deep night. But I left Ankh-Morpork at six in the evening…_

Bekki winced suddenly. She realised, belatedly, that at this time of year and at this phase of the Great Year, Rimwards Howondaland would be a few hours ahead of Ankh-Morpork. She'd contrived to arrive at between midnight and three in the morning.

But it was definitely Rimwards Howondaland. It _smelt_ right. No sound was coming up, much. But the smells, the very feel – it was her homeland down there. She'd visited often enough. Now all she needed to do was to locate the exact place. Or in this case, a _plaas_.

She turned to her two companions.

"Stop arguing, you two." she said. "Archie, remember the hint I gave you? What to look for? You're a Feegle. You can smell the stuff from ten miles away."

"Aye, Mistress…"

Wee Archie Aff The Midden stood upright in the mane. He sniffed the air. Bekki smiled to herself as the Feegle literally followed his nose. Then Wee Archie stood upright, reminding her of a hunting dog that has caught an unmistakeable scent. He pointed.

"This way, Mistress." he said, definitely.

"Thank you, Archie."

Bekki looked over her shoulder to check the tethered flying carpet with her luggage was still there, and steered Boetjie in the indicated direction, down and to the right.

With excited intent, Wee Archie gave her directions on the time-honoured _"left a wee bit… right a wee bit, straight forwards"_ principle.

As they flew lower, shapes on the ground started resolving themselves.

There were buildings down there. Sheds, barns, definite signs of some sort of industry, a typically well-ordered _plaas,_ more than a homestead, more than a farm, the large squared-off shapes of bigger buildings where some sort of industry happened. The paler grey of a service road. And Bekki was now beginning to smell the essential nature of the business for herself. Wee Archie was twanging with excitement and intent. She smiled. For a Feegle, this must be like going to Heaven while still alive. And then she saw a light. She smiled. People in this country tended to put lights out at night only if a late-arriving guest was anticipated. And the hostess knew to have them high up so they would be visible from the sky. This was indeed the place. Or _plaas_.

Bekki concentrated. Night landings were tricky. Olga and Irena had taken her and Sophie on night flights so they, and their mounts, were properly trained in them. The ground could be nearer than you thought at night. Or further away.

But she trusted Boetjie. The Pegasus circled again. Then allowed her to steer him downwards. Eventually there was the thud of a near-perfect four-hoof landing. Bekki relaxed and waited for his wings to fold, then dismounted.

And Boetjie suddenly whinnied. It was a whinny of alarm.

Bekki sensed she wasn't alone and tensed; she read the atmosphere around her. It had _growls_ in it. She fought down the sudden fear and counted…

 _One, maybe two…_

Guard-dogs. She'd arrived late. A typical _plaas_ had its guard-dogs. Patrolling at night. Especially if that _plaas_ manufactured things of value that were attractive to thieves…

 _Well, I can deal with this…._

She was aware of Wee Archie and Grindguts, their bickering over and faced with a threat, conferring and slipping off the Pegasus, working together.

She turned to face the night and saw the Ridgeback. No handler, roaming its domain at night, an ever-present threat to intruders. The huge hunting dog, long, sleek and powerful, did not appear happy to see her and it certainly wasn't going to leap up at her in order to lick her face. Not at all.

Bekki focused.

And a second or two later, the dog was blinking in puzzlement as insistent instructions started happening in its head.

 _She is friend. Not intruder. Treat her as Mistress. She is not your Goddess. But she is still human who is Alpha. Why don't I trot gently up to her, sniff her in curiosity, then offer myself for a petting and a "good boy!" that's it, her scent has familiarity to it, she is of the Pack of my human…_

Bekki returned to herself after a few moments of Borrowing and implanting suggestions in the dog's mind and petted a suddenly confused Ridgeback which was wondering why "Attack!" had turned into "Be friendly".

Elsewhere, another growl was being met by

"Hey! Fido! Youse is looking at a faceful o' _heid_ here!"

She sighed. She read the air again.

 _Two dogs. And…_

And then the shadow she was looking into, near the main _huis_ , resolved itself into a human figure. Somebody had been waiting there, watching. Hidden.

The black-clad figure stepped forward. Bekki had been around her mother and her mother's profession for long enough to read _Assassin_.

And the Assassin slipped her hood back, revealing long red hair.

" _Etzebeth! Willemse! Bly_!" she commanded. The dogs, including the one that was realising a Feegle and a Demon might not be a handy bite-sized snack after all, heard the call and trotted obediently back to their mistress. Wee Archie and Grindguts, who had been offering it two elusive fast-moving targets to distract its attention from Bekki, stepped back.

"Your mother warned me you might arrive late." Aunt Mariella said, laconically. "Waited up for you."

Then aunt and niece hugged.

 _ **Earlier in December; at the Assassins' Guild School.**_

Lord Downey poured two sherries and offered one to his guest. The second glass was accepted with thanks.

"I'm sorry to hear you will be leaving us." he said. "But there is no doubt your new appointment will be very prestigious indeed for the Guild. And for yourself, of course."

Canon Clement N'Effible, the Guild Chaplain and Principal Tutor in Religious Studies, smiled slightly.

"Indeed, sir. But my sister's word will very soon be Royal Command. You do not refuse."

"Indeed, Clement." Downey agreed. They sipped their sherries reflectively.

"It is to be expected, sir." Clement said. "The current generation of Ambassadors are largely brothers of my father who were appointed shortly after his accession to the Paramount Throne. They were appointed for the usual sorts of reasons: to informally exile a brother who would only have caused trouble at Home, or else to reward a brother who was genuinely loyal with a prestigious appointment, and, every so often, to ensure a key overseas posting is filled by a man who would be genuinely good at it, and an asset to the Empire. The third is rare, but not un-known."

Downey smiled.

"And which of the three reasons do you think applies to you?" he asked.

Clement shrugged.

"Definitely the second. Sometimes I allow myself the thought that the third also applies."

"It would be surprising if it didn't." Downey said. "Ruth… _Her Majesty…_ is taking the opportunity to prepare for her accession. So prestigious for us, that a former pupil is becoming a Queen, by the way. Very prestigious indeed. She is clearing out the old order, and easing people in of her own choosing. And with perhaps half a year to go before her elevation to the throne, she is making her choices, with the knowledge and approval of her father, and King Mpandwe is signing the necessary decrees. From a human point of view, it allows your uncle to make an unhurried handover to you as the Zulu Empire's new Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork, and he may then have a long and happy retirement in your homeland. And to say farewell to his brother before he dies."

"I will require leave, sir, to train for my new position."

"Approved. It goes without saying. Any assistance we can provide is there. You need only ask. My Lady T'Malia has expressed a willingness to advise, where she can. Her background is in diplomacy and politics, after all. Lord Vetinari will no doubt wish to congratulate you on your new post and to make formal accreditation. You need preparation for that, if nothing else. Now, have you given any thought as to your successor in your post here? Any recommendations?"

"I have a few ideas as to suitable people who may be approached, sir."

 _ **The PFW Stadium, Ankh-Morpork**_

Shauna O'Hennigan wrapped her coat firmly around her and tried to shut out the winter evening chill. This meant her working day extended further into the evening. But at least she was doing something different, finding out more about what the Smith-Rhodes Management and Marketing Consultancy actually _did,_ getting out of the office to take a look at one of the businesses it was a Consultant to. Claire had brought her along, and advised her to wrap up warm. Very warm.

The PFW Stadium was a relatively new development in the city. It had been built on the site of a redundant cattleyard in the Shambles, a building space made open by a lot of the city's droving, slaughtering and butchering industries having been moved out of the older City into New Ankh. That had made traffic management easier, for one thing: the roads into the City now had less herds of animals being driven down its streets, thus causing bottlenecks and gridlock. It also made the Ankh marginally cleaner, as there was no longer the effluent of thousands of worried animals being discharged into the street and then into the river.

And an entrepreneurial Assassin with a sporting passion had seen the opportunity: the SRMMC had backed her and formed a consortium with other investors. The PFW Stadium took its name from one of those commercial backers, the adjacent Pork Futures Warehouse.

 _For good reason_ , Claire had said. _Against all probability, chèrie, it gets colder inside. You will see._

Shauna shrugged. She had a job to do here. She carried on, standing to one side of the turnstile, behind a poster advertising a game between a team called _Les_ _Feuilles d'érable_ and one called the _Suomen leijonat,_ **(1)** clicking her counting device once for every paying spectator admitted. There were quite a lot of them. Acerians, mainly, on this turnstile, but quite a lot of Ankh-Morporkian natives who were genuinely interested in a strange foreign sport that up until now had had no opportunity to flourish in the City.

As the flow of spectators ebbed, Shauna consulted a nearby clock. Claire had said to meet up at seven-thirty for the puck-off. Shauna shrugged. That's what she said. The puck-off. It was all pretty mysterious. Shauna had never bothered overmuch with sports, apart from the obligatory interest in the Dimmers. Anything other than eleven-a-side was a closed book to her and the back pages of newspapers quite often had a good-looking lad or two in the iconographs, but she skimmed the text. She preferred it that way. _Ah well, time to puck off._

She met up with the rest, at a staff and authorised persons only entrance to the stadium. Each of them had been at a turnstile with a counter. Claire checked their counts and meticulously noted them down.

"I make this an attendance of eleven thousand, four hundred, and eighty-seven." she said, after a while. "Not a capacity crowd, but then, tonight's is not the most important game. So if each of those paying spectators has passed over fifteen pence at the gate, then we will expect, later, to see a total of one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three dollars and five pence counted in the cash office."

And there are the catering firms present. We'll need to check their takings too." Jeremy said.

"Indeed." Claire agreed. "That their licence agreements are in order, that no unauthorised vendors are present, and that they are paying the agreed percentage of their take as rent to the stadium. But first, _mes amis_ , I believe we have time to watch a little of the game. Shall we puck off inside?"

Eleven thousand people in a relatively small and necessarily enclosed space make a lot of noise, Shauna thought. Faith, it was like a football ground with a roof on. Except that football – and there was a familiar sort of playing field down there, with a netted goal at each end – was never played on a field of smooth cold ice. She wondered how the feck the players kept upright.

"You have never been here before, Shauna?" Claire said, kindly. "Then I shall explain."

The visitors were at the top of one of the banks of seats, watching from above. Claire had chosen the seating with care: it allowed them to look down on the game, whatever the feck form the game took, and along at the upper concourse where the catering businesses maintained their franchise. Shauna gathered that was important too, possibly more so than whatever sport was going to be played here.

Claire explained: there is a teacher at the Assassins' School, who she had a sort of kinship with, as we speak broadly the same language, although I am from Quirm and she is from Aceria. We both speak Quirmian, anyway. This girl from Quirmian Aceria, habituated to long cold winters with much snow and ice, arrived here and discovered to her disgust that the ice-skates and other things she had brought with her were useless here. No real winter to speak of. And even if the Ankh froze over, would you wish to strap on ice skates and trust yourself to its surface?

"Ice skates." Shauna said. She'd heard of them. They sounded bloody dangerous. Claire nodded.

"This girl soon discovered the Pork Futures Warehouse. Having been taught how to pick locks, she broke in. To practice her skating. Frequently. And she was detained by the Watch. If they could catch her."

Shauna had a sudden vision of Watchmen skidding and falling on the ice, trying to arrest a girl on ice-skates who was effortlessly eluding them. Sam Vimes would have gone spare. Lord Downey, she suspected, might have been lenient to a pupil who succeeded in embarrassing Vimes.

"What can I say? Eventually she graduated and a little later, rejoined the School as a teacher. Then she made arrangements with the PFW's owners to rent one of the large empty warehouses for recreation. She – and they – discovered many people would pay to see this sport. And also, when no games were being played, to learn to skate there. When the neighbouring stockyard fell vacant after Gerhardt Sock moved his business to New Ankh – well, Antoinette de Badin-Boucher asked if there was any reason why the force which sustained the Pork Futures Warehouse should not sustain a larger space still."

"And does it?" Shauna asked. Claire pointed upwards into the curving roof-space. Shauna followed the point. It was hard to make out at first, but they were hanging there: row upon row of translucent, not-quite-there-yet, Pork Futures. Apparently their presence generated the power that kept this place cold. Or something.

"And we look after her business interests here, to ensure she is not being cheated." Claire said. "Our employer too, as she also has money invested here. Thus, we are here to perform an audit."

After a while, Shauna watched the crowd for faces she recognised. Then she frowned. Something didn't feel right…. She leant across and asked "There are turnstile entrances here where people pay to get in. There's a staff door where we came in. Are there other ways in and out?"

Claire conferred with Jeremy. He frowned and said "not that I know of. None." He paused. "Well. There are the fire exits. They had to be added to the plans. To evacuate in an emergency…"

Shauna grinned.

"Yes, but are they locked?" she asked. "Who guards them?"

She smiled a happy smile as the others looked at each other, the penny appearing to drop.

Claire nodded. She stood up.

"Shauna, come with me, please. We will merely appear to be two women going to the privy, for as everybody knows, women attend the privy in pairs. Our leaving will not be remarked upon. The security manager here is a Troll, is he not? Who is ideal for the task, as this is a very cold place? _Bien_ , let us locate him…"

They went for a little walk together.

The other members of the party kept their seats for them and settled down to watch the game. After a while the teams came out. And pucked off.

Claire and Shauna returned about fifteen minutes into the game. Claire had a brief conference with Jeremy, over hot coffee at a concession stand. They both looked at Shauna, who was now trying to make sense of the game. It was like eleven-a-side played on iceskates with hockey sticks and a small flat ball. Shauna watched the ensuing brawl on ice, with a little hockey being played now and again in between brawls and fights; periodically a player was sent off to the sin-bin for five or ten minutes, and sat in isolation behind thick glass walls. A crowd drawn largely from places like Aceria, Swommi, Hubsvensska and Far Überwald was cheering them on.

"Jeremy, she was right." Claire said. "And, _ma foi,_ I did not notice. I did not even think of it."

Jeremy nodded in the direction of Shauna, over on the top tier of the bleacher seating. She was engrossed in the game, not listening.

"She's from Dimwell. She knows how to get into paying events without going to the bother of paying for a ticket. Apparently, her brothers and their friends sneak into eleven-a-side games through unlocked fire exits, when they're short of money."

He shook his head.

"And an unsupervised steward responsible for security at the fire exit gate takes, as his cut, five pence from each person he lets in. Ten pence less than the official ticket price. So there are possibly two hundred people in this arena who didn't pay at the turnstiles. And a now sacked and arrested steward with a pocketful of coins, who had just doubled his pay for the week in one evening."

The steward had been detained by Mr Stonecrop, the security manager, and the Watch had been called. Neither he nor the people sneaking in had elected to offer fight to an obvious Assassin and a looming troll. Shauna had been told to fall back and be discreet: Claire was concerned that people from Dimwell might recognise her face and mark her for the informal vengeance due to those who grass. **(2)**

"And we would not have noticed." Claire said. "We would have audited here, we would have assured ourselves the numbers tallied, the correct amount is being banked, and that the figures on paper were correct. We did not think to look for other ways of cheating the system and defrauding our investors. _Shauna did._ She spotted people in this arena who she is aware do not usually trouble themselves with trifling matters such as paying for tickets, and asked how they could have got in."

They both looked to Shauna again. She was watching the game and eating popcorn from a paper bag.

"I believe I see why Doctor Smith-Rhodes wanted to employ her." Jeremy remarked. Claire gave him a tolerant look.

" _Vraiment, mon ami?_ I saw this in her straight away."

 _ **From the newspaper**_ **Die Burgher en het Volksblat** _ **, Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland. Morporkian-language edition.**_

 _ **From our Special Correspondent Miss Suki van der Graaf, on the Border with the Zulu Empire, on the Ulunghi Bend in the Transvaal, Wednesday;**_

 _ **Ons grond, ons Nasie, ons Volk!**_

The Transvaal is a special place. It marks the furthest extent of our people's trek into the continent, the place where Boer expansion ended, where our people become truly a frontier folk, those who are the first line of defence of our great Nation against those who would take from us what we have and hold dear. Here everything is a kaplyn. Here is the ground we hold in our fists and defend, where it needs it, with our fists. Our ground, our nation, our _Volk_.

Once the Boer peoples sought to extend ourselves further, to the Blood River which is now deep inside the Zulu Empire. This ground was untenable so we fell back to the Ulunghi, a river which now marks the kaplyn between ourselves and the Empire. Those who returned from the Blood River determined there was to be no further retreat. One day we may regain the lost lands between the Ulunghi and the Blood Rivers. But this we have and we hold and will defend against all comers.

This determination radiated from the men, and indeed the women I was privileged to ride out with, the men of the Piemburg Volkskommando, the inheritors of the proud Boer farmer-fighter spirit, the men who laid down the tools of peaceful agriculture to defeat first proud Morporkia and then the aggressions of the Zulu Empire.

Riding with such men – and women – I knew with absolute certainty that they would fight again, and fight to the bitter end, should they need to. Their homes, their lives, their families, are here, in the semi-wild country of the Transvaal, a place of great stark beauty, untamed veldt and bush punctuated only occasionally by cultivated fields and human settlement. Such a country breeds exceptional people. Even the senior officer of the regular Army who accompanied us, a man who reporting restrictions forbid me from naming nor even identifying his unit, freely admitted as such. He knew straight away that they would be hard men to fight and harder to defeat, if such a thing were possible.

And we rode the River, looking at the land opposite that in all respects was identical to our own, save that it belongs for now to the Zulu Empire. A nation we know is entering a period of great uncertainty as its leadership and very complexion changes, and uncertainty brings a need for watchfulness.

The riders of the Piemburg Volkskommando are patrolling the river now more often and in greater strength, not to seek war with our neighbours but to demonstrate to them: we are here. We are watching. We are prepared. You stay on your side of the River and we will stay on ours and there will be no conflict. But dare cross, and we will receive you.

For a period, a patrol of Zulu soldiers marched the other side of the river in step with us, breaking into an easy loping run as if to demonstrate that a running human can keep pace with a trotting horse. They were demonstrating to us too. _Veldskornet_ Andreas Smith-Rhodes, my host on this ride, was not perturbed by this: he identified them by their green and orange distinctions as men of the local impi who guard their side of the river, and explained this is not out of the ordinary and nothing to be perturbed by.

A huge man, known as Baby Barbarossa to distinguish him from his equally distinguished father – and such a baby, well over six feet tall, extravagantly bearded and heavily muscled - Andreas Smith-Rhodes explained what it is to live and work and be vigilant on the river border. He is a veteran of past fights with the Zulus, and well remembers times when they dared cross the River in strength, only to be contained, repulsed and driven back. He nodded to his wife Cornelia who also rode with us, and said that in this place, everybody who can ride and fire a crossbow fights. His wife and all three of his sisters, Andreas said, have fought Zulus. And we are all still here. Many Zulus are not. He conceded an aunt who he loved died in battle with them, and was silent for a few moments. But all who live on this border and are our Nation's primary line of defence have lost loved ones in defending the integrity of our land. For that they deserve the thanks of all our peoples.

The senior regular officer who rode with us expressed his admiration, and said he would report back to the Bureau of Defence that the Border here was in safe hands, and the Volkskommando fit for war. Andreas Smith-Rhodes considered this for a moment and replied, laconically, that if we were not ready to fight, then we would not be here, would we? An official observer from Ankh-Morpork also rode with us. No doubt she will make similar observations when she reports back to Lord Vetinari in his faraway city. Married to a local man from Pratoria, she had every right to be here: she remarked to me, expressing a deep understanding of our people and our culture, that should a Day of Reckoning arise, the time for heroes will come again, and she sensed she was riding among the heroes.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork. Also in December.**_

Olga Romanoff gave an account of her visit to Howondaland. She had brought copies of local newspapers with her. Johanna Smith-Rhodes took time to read the relevant parts, and shook her head.

" _Jislaik_. Suki really lays it on with a spade, doesn't she?"

Olga smiled slightly.

"She takes liberties. I never quite said that about the Day of Reckoning. Perhaps she misunderstood my accent or my admittedly bad _Vondalaans_."

" _Ag_ , you're improving. You'll end up like Ponder. He'll never lose thet odd eccent he hes, but there's no denying he cen speak the lenguege very well indeed."

Olga refrained from remarking that Johanna had never lost _her_ accent when she spoke Morporkian. She wondered if this would be the case: she'd end up speaking Vondalaans fluently but with an accent that betrayed she wasn't a native speaker; while Eddie, who was getting better all the time at _Rus_ , would speak her language with an exotic foreign twist. And their children would be native-fluent in both, just like Johanna and Ponder's. And in Morporkian, a language that was not first preference for either Eddie or Olga.

Olga broke off and had a conversation with a third party who was invisible to Johanna. Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, who was also present, joined in. Johanna sighed, resignedly. It wasn't insanity: it was Witchcraft. She gathered that her aunt was present and had been reading the newspaper report over Johanna's shoulder. And was now remarking on it.

 _Nice of Andreas to remember me. But eish, that meisie Suki needs to know I don't think of myself as any sort of heroine. I rode out, I fought Zulus, a day or two later my heart gave in and I died. Nothing to do with Zulus, just my bloody bad heart. So gaan dit._

Bekki repeated this for her mother, who nodded, understanding.

" _So gaan dit."_ Johanna repeated. _So it goes_.

"If it helps, Crowbar Dreyer turned up. With Suki. Your father gave him the flamethrower treatment. You know, just on principle. Suki is his niece, after all."

"Eish. Twice in one lifetime." Johanna remarked. "Once over me, end the second time because Father felt responsible over his niece. Did Mother have a word too?"

Olga nodded, a smile spreading over her face.

"You know, the Crowbar took it meekly. I really don't think it made a difference to your father that he was laying down the law to a very senior General with a lot of firepower. And General Dreyer struck me as the sort of man who knows when he's outnumbered, when not to fight a battle. If it helps, Dreyer wants to send some of his people to the border to help out. Your father had strong opinions to express about that, too. He said, and I quote freely, he's damned if he's hosting a bunch of fight-happy maniacs who can only make the situation worse. You know. The ones who might just slip over to the other side of the river to stir things up a bit just for the Hell of it."

Johanna nodded. Then pointed out she'd served with the said fight-happy psycho maniacs during her own Army service.

"Ah. No offence."

"None taken. Father was probebly quite right. And Father also pointed out that while Dreyer's people get to go beck to their berrecks later, he end his family would still be there, to take eny consequences efterwards?"

Olga nodded.

"Dreyer accepted that this was a consideration too, but he asked your father to take into consideration that if his forces are officially ordered to patrol the Ulunghi Bend, that over-rules your father's objections."

Johanna took a deep inward breath through her teeth.

" _Eina_. He said _thet_ to my father? In his own plaas?"

Olga nodded.

"I thought it was wise to step in then. I suggested a compromise. Dreyer wants to send people in to observe and watch. Your father is dead against having something like the Slew in his parish because it might complicate things. I said. Barbarossa, two of your daughters served in the Slew with officer rank. Why not have your daughter Mariella, or else her husband Horst, supervise them? Mariella would understand not to do anything agressive. She would certainly have an interest in not provoking any trouble. And I said I could run this past you when I went back to Ankh-Morpork, get your opinion."

Johanna considered this for a few moments. Then she said

"Perheps I hev en idea too. I need to speak to people. Make a plen."

Claude the butler stepped forward. He cleared his throat.

"My lady, Lieutenant Politek of the Pegasus Service is here. She asks to speak to you concerning her own recent visit to the Zulu Empire. She understands Captain Romanoff is also here."

Johanna and Olga looked at each other.

"Show her in, Claude."

Olga smiled benevolently at Bekki.

"I hope you're taking all this in, _devuschka._ " she said. "This is Pegasus Service stuff. You need to listen well, understand what you're hearing, make good judgement calls, and report back accurately to the right people. You'll learn."

Bekki blinked. The idea she was going to have to practice diplomacy as well as deliver messages – and occasionally people – was daunting. Not for the first time she wondered if she was up to it. _But it comes with the wingèd horse._

But Godsmother Irena was here now, and was being warmly welcomed by Johanna and Olga. Her flight had been to the Zulu Empire, to the Royal Kraal and to Ruth's Lioness City. And she was here to compare notes with Olga, who had done the parallel run into White Howondaland.

Her news summated laconically. King Mpandwe was discharging his Royal duties in the brief periods between opiate-induced pain relief and succumbing into sleep. Ruth was taking on more and more of the duties of Regent, ruling in his stead, with only brief visits to her own City, which was largely under the administration of her trusted subordinates Sissi N'kima and Chakki N'Golante.

Johanna nodded satisfaction.

"I taught them both." she said. "Good pupils. Very good greduetes. I em pleased."

"Ruth is currently reviewing senior overseas postings around the Disc." Irena said. "Diplomats and missions. These are largely staffed with her father's appointees. I believe she is to recall and retire most of them and replace them with people of her own choosing. I suspect she might even take the novel point of view that Ambassadors should be able people who are going to be good at it, not sinecure postings awarded out of nepotism or political necessity."

Johanna nodded. She had heard on the grapevine who the new Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork was going to be. She approved of this: a clever and able Zulu who had spent most of his life in Ankh-Morpork and who was utterly loyal to Ruth. And Assassin-trained.

"And here's the other thing, Johanna. Ruth is deploying her cavalry to the borders. You know. The unexpected surprise weapon that rolled all over the Muntabians. She's recruited more of them since. _And_ had them trained by Cossacks."

Irena grinned and patted the sabre at her hip.

"Do you know, they've trained their cavalry to sing things like _Ruskaya'rat_?" Irena remarked. "And _Ойся ты ойся._ I know Zulus like to sing war-chants, but I never expected _that._ It took me by surprise. Ended up dancing the _shaksha_ with her cavalry commander. A lot of her cavalry were watching. They want to learn how to do it."

Olga stepped forward and sniffed her friend's breath. She shook her head. Irena waved her away, impatiently.

"And I had a glass of vodka with Zoya. Or two. And don't look at me like that, Olga. так оно и есть, нет?"

" _Nichevo_." Olga said, understandingly. _Can't be helped_. Olga contemplated her own empty glass. Claude smoothly whisked it away at a nod from Johanna.

"So Ruth's sending her horsewomen to the Border." Johanna said. "There's a big risk."

"Indeed." Irena said. "Which is why she wants to use an unofficial channel of communication with the Rimwards Howondalandian government."

Irena accepted a glass of vodka from Claude with thanks. He delivered refilled drinks to Olga and Johanna. Bekki shook her head at the butlerian raised eyebrow.

"Just a straight soda water for me, please, Claude. With a dash of lime juice. Dankie." Bekki had never really got the hang or the taste of anything alcoholic.

"Very wise, _devushka_." Irena said. Or should I say, жар-птица?"

Olga went very poker-faced.

"You have my permission to hang the nose-art on the forward panniers of your Pegasus." she said. "It is good art. Your sister put some effort into it. I approve."

"Thank you." Bekki said. Nose-art was a tradition of the Service; every Pegasus pilot carried a distinctive picture on her forward panniers. Hanna von Strafenburg decorated hers with stylised lightning bolts, for instance. Her Pegasus was a stallion called _Blitzen_ , Lightning. **(3)**

Ruth had taken measurements of the forward panniers carried on a Pegasus. And had then retired to her art studio. A day or two later, she had shyly presented Bekki with left and right matching pictures of a phoenix emerging from the flames. The flames, Bekki noticed, were largely the orange-red of her own hair. It was a nice touch. Underneath the bird, on both sides, was the Rus name she'd been given by the witch Xenia Galena.

 _жар-птица_

And underneath that, the Vondalaans translation

 _die_ _Vuurvoël._

Bekki loved it.

" Z _har-ptitsa."_ Irena said, thoughtfully.

Olga went very poker and thoughtful for an instant.

" _Da._ Z _har-ptitsa."_ she said. "Rebecka, I advise you not to have that added in Morporkian characters. Or to Morporkians you will ever be…"

"Yes. _Sharp-tits_. I know." Bekki sighed.

Olga reached over and patted her hand. "But your call-sign is _Firebird._ I like that. It will serve."

"Cavalry." Johanna prompted. Irena sipped her vodka.

"Ruth's cavalry. Who over winter will be herded to where the best grass is. Which is generally close to rivers." Irena said. "Ruth is very anxious that this is not taken as a hostile gesture. Her riders are there to deter her troublesome brother. And to return a fast reply to her command kraal when her brother's army is seen to march. If they fight at all, it will be a brief and hopefully conclusive engagement with her brother's forces. So that he realises who the true Paramount Monarch is, and that it is not him. They are not there to seek war with your people. She really hopes your father and brother will understand this and that they are not to be alarmed. She also reminds your brother Andreas they met at Danie and Heidi's engagement party, and he was quite appreciative of her. She asks him to remember when they took a drink together, and agreed better to drink than fight."

" _Ja_ , I remember." Johanna said. She turned round to see her youngest daughter coming into the room.

"Ruthie, you know I love you, but we'll have to be quick, as Mummy is busy right now… what have you got there, sweetheart?"

Ruth was holding a large mechanical something.

"I made this for Bekki, mummy."

She turned and looked shyly at Irena and Olga.

"Would you like to see it, too? You might like to see."

Olga smiled back.

"What have you got, little one? It looks like a clock."

Ruth held out the device. It measured about ten inches across and might have had clockwork somewhere in its ancestry. Something clock-like was ticking, anyway.

"I knew Bekki was having problems with working out what time it was going to be wherever she was going. That sounds like a really difficult problem. And I thought. What if you can build a clock that tells you what time it is, anywhere you go on the Disc? I wondered if you could buy one. Then I discovered nobody had built one before."

"Nobody needed to." Irena said. "Till now." She leant over, intrigued. It looked as if a map of the disc had been painted on a large flat plate. The standard lines of longitude had been painted over it, radiating from Cori Celesti in the dead centre. The concentric circles were evenly spaced, beginning from their mutual centre at Cori Celesti. The Dimwell Meridian was picked out in red. So far, standard geography. But a single small clock face occupied the centre. It appeared to have more than one set of hands, each set in a different colour.

Ruth rotated an outer bezel. As it clicked, one set of hands on the central clock rotated with it. She explained this represented the Head of the Turtle, which as the Disc moves will appear in a different place on each of the eight hundred days of the Great Year. This in turn affects where the Sun apparently rises and sets each day. Then you take Absolute Noon as the time when the sun is at its highest over Cori Celesti. This is the starting point for all Disc time. You set the day, you ensure the main clock is showing Cori Celesti time. Then the mechanism sets first the time here, in Ankh-Morpork, which depending on the day in the Great Year can be two or three hours ahead or behind Cori Celesti. Right now it is twenty past eight in the evening here. So if today, on the three hundred and ninetieth day of the Great Year, you wish to know what time it is in Genua, over here. Move this other pointer round on the bezel until it points at Genua. Then watch the third set of hands on the clock rotate and settle. At this moment it is seven in the morning there. Well, three minutes to seven.

"Err. It isn't very accurate right now. It may be two or three minutes out in either direction. And I can't make it any smaller. Yet. But what do you think?"

Olga had pulled out a standard Watch notepad and pencil and was furiously calculating. Irena was assisting her. They compared their calculations.

"Genua. In this moment. Two minutes to seven in the morning." Olga said, eventually. Uneasily, she realised this manual calculation, even with her own experience, had taken her three or four times longer than Ruth's device.

" _Slava bogu_." Irena said. _Dear Gods_.

Johanna was considering her daughter's work. Ruth was guiding her mother in working out the current time in Rimwards Howondaland. Johanna moved the pointers on the clock. The new kind of clock. She watched as the hands rotated into place and settled on a time.

 _Such a brilliant idea…_

Olga whooped and swept Ruth up into her arms, kissing her on both cheeks. She reverted to speaking delightedly in Rus.

"ты красивая маленькая девочка и гений! Целую тебя, прекрасный умный ребенок!"

"We need these for the Service." Irena said, equally delightedly, as Bekki, leaning over to observe the miraculous device, caught fragments like " _Beautiful clever little girl_ " from Olga's excitement.

"Ruth, clever _devushka_ , did you make drawings? Did you make notes for your design?"

"Of _course_ I did." Ruth said, managing to look a little bit miffed somebody had thought to ask that.

"If you wish for this to be copied end built commercially." said Johanna, "Copyright in this device is my daughter's. End you will need et least seventeen. A fee for each one will be paid to Ruth. We cen decide the emounts later."

 _ **Bitterfontein, the Caarp Country, Rimwards Howondaland. January.**_

Bekki sat in the kitchen with her aunt. A pot of rooibos tea was on the table between them. Aunt Mariella smiled happily.

"I need to help you get your things to your room." she said. "We can both get some sleep justnow, then later on I can show you around."

She reached down to pet one of her dogs. Both had accepted Bekki. Although both were wary around Grindguts and Wee Archie.

"I am very intrigued as to how you managed to get Etzebeth practically eating out of your hand." Mariella said. "He can be difficult around new people. A witch thing, _ja-nie_?"

She turned to Demon and Feegle.

"A few ground rules." she said, in Morporkian. She nodded to Wee Archie, who had been provided a small glass of klipdrift, which Mariella conceded was fair, as he'd brought Bekki here.

"Es you have noticed, _this_ is a vineyard end a distillery. _You_ are a nac mac Feegle. I see potential for _misunderstendings_ here."

Mariella glared at the young Feegle.

"There is to be no bringing your friends here, unless I permit it. Is thet clearly understood?"

"Aye, mistress." Wee Archie said, submissively. He noted Bekki nodding at him.

"You may go where you wish. But should you go into the distillery and the bottling plant, nothing leaves with you unless you have leave to take it. Is thet elso clearly understood?"

Bekki nodded again.

"Aye, Mistress Mariella." Wee Archie agreed.

Mariella smiled at him.

Tomorrow you meet my husband's mother, who is _mevrou_ here. If you think I am scary, wait till you meet _mevrou_ Hendricka." she advised him. "But if we understend there are rules, we will get on."

"How's uncle Horst?" Bekki asked.

"Same old. He wanted to wait up to meet you. But I told him not to be a _bliksem_ all his life, he has to be up early in the morning and it's best he gets his sleep. You'll see him at breakfast. By the way, you got the calculations wrong for travelling here, didn't you? Been up _hours_ waiting for you to arrive."

Bekki went slightly red. The marvellous calculating clock was still in Ankh-Morpork, so that clever artificers and clockmakers could use it as a guide for building copies for the Pegasus pilots. The Clockmakers' guild had assured Lord Vetinari they could miniaturise the device and have the first working versions ready for issue by February. Ruth was indeed being paid handsomely for her work. Mum had made sure of this. Her management consultancy had expanded the file on Ruth's investments and income streams. Bekki sighed; the way her sister was going she'd be worth a lot of money even before leaving school. But she, Rebecka, _could_ have done the manual working-out better.

"Took Rivka and me eighteen months to get from Ankh-Morpork to here." Mariella said, looking at Bekki. " _You_ can do it in half an hour. Ag, that's progress. You're taking me up for a flight on Boetjie sometime, of course."

"Be delighted." Bekki said.

They talked family and friends through another cup of tea, then went to bed. Tomorrow would be a new day. And a new life.

Bekki fell asleep, noting Etzebeth the ridgeback curling up to sleep at the foot of her bed. The dog had really taken to her. Bekki fell asleep, remembering a little girl of three or four who had gone to sleep with a ridgeback watching guard over her…

* * *

 **And here, finally, ends Book One. Book Two will follow sometime. I may come back to add a scene (so that all three sisters get an appearance) where Famke gets a practical test of her assassin skills from Miss Glynnie. But this first book of** _ **Strandpiel**_ **finishes here.**

 **Book Two will be** _ **Strandpiel; Welcome to Howondaland**_ **. Coming soon.**

* * *

 **(1)** Apologies to Finnish readers: I know the national ice hockey side is called the Lions, but not sure how it grammatically becomes the Finnish Lions. I'm on sounder ground with an, er, Canadian side calling itself the _Maple Leaves_ , though.

 **(2)** "Doctor Smith-Rhodes wishes you to become an Associate Member of the Assassins' Guild, _ma petite_? That will be for the best, I think. It entitles you to a degree of protection." Shauna had considered this, pulled the hood of her cloak up to conceal her face, and tried to project the confident menace of a second back-up Assassin. It helped that she was wearing black.

 **(3)** _Blitzen_ in Gernan shares a root and a meaning with the cognate Dutch, _bliksem_. Which apparently only means "lightning" in Dutch. Dutch people may or may not know of the primary meaning of the word " _bliksem_ " in Afrikaans. Which can _sometimes_ mean merely "lightning" in South African usage… but one Dutch person I know was genuinely innocent of the word's primary meaning in a closely related language…

 _ **Notes Dump:**_

 _ **Russian – the domovoy, house-spirit. Apparently in Russia a bouquet with an even number of flowers in it is for funerals, odd numbers for anything else…**_

жар-птица _, zhar-ptitsa – the firebird. Stravinsky reference. Listen to the piece to get ideas._ Жар-птица


	59. Postscript: In die Donker

_**Strandpiel postscript**_

 _ **In die donker – in the dark**_

 _Op 'n berg in die nag,_

 _lê ons in donker en wag…_

 _(Bok van Blerk,_ **De la Rey** _, opening lyne)_

 _ **V1.2, some more minor revisions for the uusal depressing reasons**_

 **Ideas:-**

 _ **I know. I couldn't leave it alone. It bothered me that there was no Famke in the final chapter of Book One. I couldn't leave it without giving the Tykebomb a scene or two. I didn't want her coming round and complaining, for one thing. So here it is.**_

 _ **Happy Hogswatch!**_

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, Ankh Morpork**_

"What the Hells happened to Sandra?" Susie Metcalfe said, anxiously.

"Search me." Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons said, with an indifferent shrug. She returned to the chore of maintaining and polishing her working boots. It was another little discipline her mother had drummed into her, and indeed into her sisters. _Care for your boots,_ Mum had said. _I know we have servants and one of their many jobs, if you let them, would be to clean and polish your footwear. We used to have a Boy who did that. But this, you will do for yourself. And you are asking me why, Famke Cornelia? Imagine if you are on a trek, thirty miles away from any human habitation? You have only one pair of boots? And because you neglected them, or you looked to others to clean them, the sole begins to fall off, or else the upper separates from the sole, it is raining, there are inches of mud on the ground, and thus damp and infection gets in?_

Mum had then described things like trenchfoot and, in really cold places, frostbite, offered to show her medical iconographs, and repeated one of her mantras: _you are only as good as your feet. And your feet depend on good boots. Lose your feet in the wild and you die._

Famke looked after her footwear. She had also asked what had happened to The Boy, the sixth servant in the household where for as long as she could recall, there'd only been five. Mum had been non-committal. Apparently, there'd been bother of some sort. He had been sent back to the Other Country. Before you were born, Famke Cornelia. And no point asking Bekki, she was only three. We didn't get another Boy. So you look after your own boots, _meisie_. **(1)**

Famke shrugged. She'd find out. No hurry. And she knew that at some point in Second Year, outdoor expeditions and treks would begin. And they'd only get longer and more arduous. Making sure you had good boots, ones you could rely on, made sense. That one in Lancre, in the summer, had been a pleasant stroll compared to the ones in front of her.

Suzie sat down on the bed next to Famke. She looked worried.

"Kay, you're close to Miss Glynnie." she said.

"Not _that_ close." Famke said. "And before you ask, just because Mum and one of my aunts are teachers here doesn't mean I get special privileges. They don't invite me into the staffroom so I get to hear the goss, or anything like that. Mum's really careful about that. She talks to Dad and she talks to Bekki, but if I try to get anything out of my big sister that Mum might have told her, she just shuts up and says "nice try."

Famke grinned at her dorm-mate.

"And Miss Glynnie doesn't play favourites. She might fix it for me, and I know I'm not the only one, to get some advanced teaching now and again, but she certainly doesn't tell me her reasons for doing things. Look, we all saw her take Sandra Venturi off for a word after Sandra had been shooting her big fat mouth off. And we all heard her say she had something planned for Sandra, some sort of _special lesson_ , whatever that is. And we all saw Sandra come back, white as a ghost and trembling. Then she gets taken off to the Infirmary and Matron Igorina probably got a few happy pills into her to help her sleep. That's all we know. Me, I'm not thinking about it. If it means Sandra's not here and in sick bay, I'm happy with that. Makes the dorm a pleasanter place."

Suzie looked doubtful.

"Well, yes. But… every woman teacher has got her version of the Vimes Run."

Famke shrugged. She'd done the Vimes Run. It held no terrors for her. And it was common knowledge that if you pissed off one of your teachers, it was at your peril. Miss Band had innovated when she'd introduced the practice of sending really annoying people, or ones who'd got slack or over-confident, out to target Sam Vimes. Other women teachers had followed her example, tailoring exquisite punishment to their own inclinations or specialities. Survivors, when they had stopped shuddering, admitted you also learnt something, even if the lesson was " _do not annoy your teacher_."

"So? My mum finds you a dangerous or disgusting animal to look after." Famke said. Acerian Skunks were a favourite of Mum's. "Miss Tanner books you in for some work experience. At the abbatoir or the tanning yards."

Miss Tanner was the Crafts Mistress. She believed her students should _really understand_ leather at all its stages, from fresh hide to finished item.

"Old Artsy-Fartsy has you grinding paint pigments." Suzie said. She shuddered. "At least she makes sure it's a ventilated room and you get a breathing mask." Mrs Stitched-Lansbury knew all about paints. She also believed an artist should know how to make their own, from scratch. As she pointed out, painters suffered for their Art in that virtually every paint pigment, especially if you chose them with care, was poisonous to a greater or lesser degree. Now it's your turn to suffer for your Art. Mortar and pestle, breathing mask, latex gloves, supply of cinnabar to create a vermilion pigment? Good. When you've finished that, I've got some lovely yellow arsenic salts over here…and then we can talk about what makes a really good fast primary blue.

They discussed Vimes Runs for some time.

"The point is, Kay, we don't know what Miss Glynnie's Vimes Run is." Suzie said.

Famke shrugged again.

"Could be that's what Sandra just had. And that's why she got carted off to Matron Igorina for some heavy-duty ton-of-dried-frog happy pills."

Suzie nodded, seriously.

"I wish I knew _what_."

"Ah, just stay on the right side of her. Safest way." Famke suggested, finishing her boots and beginning to gather her cleaning things together. She studied the welt of a boot carefully, checking it with a fingertip, then replaced it in her locker.

"Ah. Famke."

Famke heard the familiar voice from behind her. It was Miss Glynnie all over; you could have sworn she wasn't there, then you'd turn round, and…

"Yes, miss?" Famke said, respectfully. Her Housemistress liked to be informal with her pupils and to use first name terms where she could. But it didn't mean she was a soft touch, and it _certainly_ didn't mean you could call her Ethylene to her face. Famke wasn't sure what would happen to anyone who did, but she wasn't going to try and find out.

She looked into the serious face, fringed by long unbound dark hair. Miss Glynnie wasn't smiling.

"Earlier this evening you had a little disagreement with Cassandra Venturi." Miss Glynnie remarked, in her carefully reassembled voice, that sounded as if she'd diligently taken all the pieces off the sprue, painted them individually, and checked the instruction leaflet prior to construction.

"I took Cassandra away from the situation and gave a her a little advanced instruction in the hope she would learn something valuable and she would become a better person for it." her teacher said, pleasantly. "I have every hope she will. As you were the other person involved, it is only fair you receive the same lesson too. Come with me. We have two hours before curfew."

Famke followed her teacher out of the dorm, trying to look nonchalant and unconcerned, noting the appalled looks on the other girls' faces. She reflected that at least she would know for sure, now, what Miss Glynnie's version of the Vimes Run was.

* * *

Miss Glynnie led Famke down quite a lot of stairways. Filligree Street was a big building, the heart of the Assassins' Guild on the Disc. It went quite a long way up on a big site, for the City centre. It had to: there wasn't really very much _across_ it could expand into as other big Guilds were jostled up against it on all sides. It famously shared a deceptively thin partition wall with its back-to-back neighbour, the Fools' Guild. Students whose dorms were built against this dividing wall were routinely warned against breaching it. Sanctions applied; ferocious ones. It was whispered that alarms had been built in, at great expense, to maintain the integrity of the common wall.

But the Guild had expanded. Famke knew at the time her mother had been taken on as a teacher, it had taken a collective deep breath and accepted the Time Was Now Right to accept young ladies as students. The School had also relaxed, by degrees, its inclusions policy. It was no longer as socially exclusive as it had formerly been, even though the older and more prestigious boys-only Houses still kept to the very old ways, largely as a sop to socially élite and Entitled families of the nobility. Student numbers had doubled.

With pressure on site, overspill campuses now existed at places like Mollymog, and new institutions like the City Zoo, the Animal Management Unit and Tegg's Nose provided off-site teaching and instruction. There was also the Equestrian Centre at Garstairs that taught all things horsey.

The Guild had also thought creatively about the space problem on Filigree Street. You couldn't expand outwards without evicting the Fools, the Teachers or the Bakers from their Guild premises. It was impossible, and would look ugly and unseemly, with no regard to fine old architecture, to add extra storeys to the buildings. But Ankh-Morpork was built on other, older, Ankh-Morporks. Why, a lot of the Undercity had pre-existing rooms, cellars, even old halls, that were in structurally good order. Why not learn from the Dwarfs and expand _downwards_ , get some clever Dwarfs in to advise?

Thus, a lot of the Guild's teaching facilities, aided by good ventilation, dehumidifying systems and damp-proofing, were now underground. It all added to the sinister image of unholy things done in dark places. Even if those dark sinister places were actually, these days, airy, pleasant and well-lit.

Famke wondered exactly how many flights of stairs Miss Glynnie was going to lead her down. They even passed Rehearsal Room Seven-A, the heavily soundproofed music studio given over to percussion, which was normally Miss Glynnie's professional domain. Up until now, Famke had thought that was as far down as the School went. But no; they passed down another two flights of stairs, two more levels of sub-cellar, and she realised this was as low as the Guild went. _Probably_.

 _Nine levels below the street_ , Famke thought. She'd counted the number of flights of steps. And everything here had a sort of half-finished, temporary, look to it. The Dwarf systems for maintaining air flow and keeping the place acceptably dry only seemed to have been installed recently. There was still a hint of clammy damp in the walls and the air. This part of the Undercity had an air of only just having been reclaimed after millenia of neglect. Even the lighting in this corridor was sparse and dimmed.

"I was permitted space and a budget here for a personal project." Miss Glynnie said. "The Dark Council found my idea intriguing and asked what I required to make it work. Your mother and Miss Band were very supportive. Over the last few months, Dwarf artisans helped build this to my design. It requires a little adjustment, but I am pleased with the outcome. Several people have helped test it."

Famke had a little mental picture of a guinea-pig squeaking in a treadmill, or else one of the lab-rats at the Animal Management Unit, dropped into a maze and tested on how well it could locate the cheese whilst avoiding the…

 _And if Miss Band is in on this, there will be traps…_

Miss Glynnie smiled tolerantly.

"I require you to empty your pockets, Famke. All of them. You carry nothing into this place. Except the clothes you are wearing. That's important. Drop everything into this box. I promise you I am not concerned about any items that might normally attract sanctions…. _matches_ , Famke? Do not let me see those again. Thank you. Oh, and your mother selected your footwear? Boots off, please. Thank you. No knives in the sheaths, good. Just allow me to extract the lockpicks from your heels, and check the soles – no, your mother was prudent, and she did not buy you the boots with the hidden blades. "

There was a slight clink as the emergency lockpicks ended up in the box. For an encore, Miss Glynnie deftly located and removed the Gigli saw and extra lockpick concealed in Famke's belt, patted her pockets, even the hidden ones, and pronounced herself satisfied. Famke was allowed to put her boots back on, and she was led to a door.

"You will enter this place." she was told. "Your task is to orientate yourself and to make sense of it. Nobody is trying to trip you up, and there are no lethal traps in there. There is nothing in there that can kill or injure you. _Nothing at all_. On the other side of that door, there is just you. Only you. After a given length of time, I will come in to escort you out. Just as I did for Cassandra. Remember."

Miss Glynnie took Famke's face in both hands and moved it to hers. Famke felt her teacher's warm palms against her face. It wasn't unpleasant. She looked into intense eyes.

"There is just you. _Only_ you." she repeated.

And then the door opened. Into intense blackness. Famke studied it, then took three steps forward. The door closed behind her. It should have thudded shut, or creaked. But it did so in total silence. And the residual light from the corridor, such as it was, died.

Famke stood in the dark. She opened her eyes wide, reasoning that after a count of maybe sixty, they would adjust and she'd be able to pick out _something_. There was never absolute darkness anywhere. She counted to sixty. Unaccountably, dim shapes and forms and outlines completely failed to appear.

It began to dawn on her that for your eyes to adjust to lower light conditions, there had to be some light present for your eyes to adjust to. Here there was none. None at all.

 _She said she got dwarfs to build this place. Thora was explaining once about the very deep galleries at her home. Deep-down Dwarf stuff. No light at all._

Famke started to move, very slowly and cautiously, sweeping her arms wide and slowly in front of her, checking her forward path with infinite caution from floor to head-height, probing for any tripwires or mechanisms, ensuring the very floor in front of her remained a floor, that her probing fingers did not, for instance, find an edge above a drop where a floor suddenly wasn't…

 _Not so bad,_ she thought _. So I can't use my eyes. Limitation of the exercise._

She considered the floor. _Some sort of carpeting. Over a thick slightly springy something. Thick underlay, gives slightly as I walk on it, but not very much. Can't hear my feet. Is this deliberate too?_

Famke continued in this way for perhaps a few minutes, advancing maybe six feet. Then remembered her teacher assuring her there were no conventional traps in here. She relaxed, and decided to take this on trust. She returned to what she thought had been the door she had come in by. She frowned. There was a wall there. Padded with something with the same slight give to it as the floor. Careful probing with fingertips found what might have been the regular shape of a doorway – some way to the right of where she thought it might be. But it was flush to the wall. She frowned again. She was sure she had walked straight ahead, in a straight line from the entry door. But turning to come back again had taken her over to the left. Was she getting disorientated already?

 _Your task is to orientate yourself…._

Famke realised she was failing at it already. She thought, furiously. _This is a wall. Use it. Keep it on my right at all times. Count my paces. At least build a picture in my head as to how big this place is._

Moving slowly and carefully, she counted the paces from the entry door until she came to what she thought was a conventional right angle in the wall. She memorised a number, then started the count again, keeping her right hand on the wall as she moved. Then there was another angle in the wall. This felt different, subtly so, to the previous one. She concentrated and made what she sensed was a little bit less than a quarter-turn. Memorised a second number, then resumed a new count.

The wall felt strange and familiar at the same time. Then she realised where she'd seen a similar wall: the new music studio Mum had paid for at home, where she and Bekki and Ruth, and Bekki's drippy-but-decent BF, had played music. This was soundproofing. Like the stuff the Dwarfs had installed at home, but different.

"Well, this isn't so bad…" Famke said out loud. She stopped. She could barely hear her own voice. It sounded like a faint whisper. She shouted. It sounded like a louder faint whisper. She tested herself. She put fingers to her throat over the larynx and _really_ shouted. Same faint whisper, but the vibrations in her throat reassured her that had been a shout. She clapped her hands. A faint "phut" noise. **(2)**

 _No vision. No sound, either._

She realised she'd lost count. She retraced her steps to the oddly-angled corner and started again.

There was another oddly-angled corner, another number to memorise, and then a longer wall. It seemed to have a kink in it, about a hundred paces along. Then another turn, and then the possible outline of a door again… Famke frowned. Was she back where she'd come in? She kicked herself for not having marked her starting point. And she couldn't assume there was only one door in… she counted from the door to the next corner. It tallied with her original count. So she was back where she started, then.

Famke tried to visualise it in her head. A long not-quite-a-rectangle, with two long sides. The shorter wall at the far end a little longer than the one with the door in. A, what do you call it, _trapezoid_ shape.

As for how high it was… _well, can't work out how to measure that, for now._ She considered taking a boot off and throwing it up to work out if it encountered a ceiling, and reflected she'd have to be able to see it fly and hear it hit things. Since neither was a given in this place, all she would do would be to lose a boot. Nothing to climb, too, in that smoothish surface: nothing for fingers and toes to feel for. No edificeering.

Famke sniffed. Was that _mint_ she could smell? Just a single tantalising whiff, and it was gone again. Puzzle. But never mind, not important. _Funny, it seemed very sharp and clear, as if I was smelling mint for the first time, or something…_ on my tongue too, as if I was tasting it.

Famke braced herself and decided it was time to start exploring the inner space. It meant leaving the oddly comforting and solid presence of the Wall behind her, and giving up its feel on her fingertips… she felt as if she were wishing a friend goodbye. She squared her shoulders and stepped into the Dark, seeking to quarter the space as methodically as possible.

After a while, in the monotony of Nothing, she began to feel decidedly odd. Just the floor under her feet. And the warm featureless odourless air around her. Nothing to touch. Nothing to see. Nothing to hear.

She flexed her fingers to feel her fingertips against her palms. She clasped both hands together for reassurance. For just an instant there she'd felt herself dissolving, as if the fundamental boundary, the one that marked where Famke Cornelia Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons ended and the rest of the world began, that was breaking down and she was no longer sure where one ended and the other started. This was getting _weird_. Very dimly, she started to perceive possible reasons why Cassandra Venturi might have had a crisis in here and had ended up being sedated in the infirmary.

She's an idiot, Famke told herself, firmly. _You are not an idiot. Get a grip._

Nothing to touch, nothing to see, nothing to hear, and now nothing to feel.

Famke remembered her teacher's words again.

"There is nothing in there that can kill or injure you. _Nothing at all_. On the other side of that door, there is just you. Only you."

 _Nothing at all. Apart, that is, from me._

Famke sniffed the air again.

This time the sharp scent was lemon. Briefly, just a hint. Then it was gone. It lingered in her nose and on her tongue, sharper than it had a right to be, then died.

Famke shook her head. Another puzzle.

Then she walked into something. She hadn't expected anything. But it was there. At about mid-thigh level. The physical sensation of touching something was intense, far more so than it had a right to be. Famke went "ooof…." And fell forwards.

It was a couch, or maybe a bed. She felt along it, wondering if this was some sort of sadistic trick. No. Just a normal single bed. With a pillow. It was soft and wonderfully inviting. No sheets or anything, jut a bare sort of couch-thing.

Famke smiled to herself. She remembered the old song.

 _Op 'n berg in die nag,_

 _lê ons in donker en wag…_

Well. It wasn't a mountainside at night. Where a ragged group of Boers waited in the cold, mud and rain with only old sacks to cover them, awaiting morning and a renewed battle with the Morporkians. But it might as well be night. And it was dark. No doubt about it being dark.

 _Time to lie down and wait. And if Miss Glynnie finds me asleep and having happy dreams when she comes in to find me, then serves her right._

Famke laid herself down in the dark to wait. There really wasn't much else to do. All her other senses seemed to have shut down. Or to have been shut down. With the possible exception of smell, which was perplexing.

She didn't sleep, as such. There was something indefinibly odd going on around this bed, or couch, or whatever: it was comfortable, yes, but somehow after a while she felt as if it wasn't really there any more, as if she was floating, unsupported, in space. But she relaxed, and pictures started forming in her head. She expected this, somehow. Then she wasn't sure at all if they were forming inside or outside her head. The boundary between _inside_ and _outside_ was getting less and less clear. Memories. Nice ones. Long-ago birthday parties. Being excited when Mummy had brought baby Ruthie home for the first time. And not-nice ones. Those shouting rows with Mum when neither of them was going to back down. Famke felt these keenly, and sensed her self-assurance eroding. This was uncomfortable.

She heard her grandfather's voice, when they'd been together in Lancre, for the Witch Trials. Just after the fight in the farmyard. It came clearly, as if Oupa Barbarossa was there with her - more, she thought, than just memory.

 _Wellnow, meisie. It appears you have your mother's fighting streak in you. You think I got these grey hairs naturally? Listen to me now. You got away with that because those Zulus were boys, not much older than you. You, on your own, charged three Zulus? Nobody backing you up or covering your flanks? Jislaik, meisie. They didn't know what to do and they retreated from you. They ran. Do not think I'm not proud of you for that. But do you think you would have lasted for five minutes if they'd been adults? Grown men with training and combat experience? While you were duelling the man in front of you, the other two would be coming round to your sides with their spears and -_

Her grandfather had been right, Famke realised. She could have been killed. it was a sudden, deeply uncomfortable, realisation.

And then the vision arose, of three huge Zulus coming at her with assegais raised. It was clear, it was vivid, it was full colour, and they were out there. Famke realised she had no weapons. She was defenceless. She even heard the war-cry…

Then a little voice in the back of her mind said "This is a memory too. The chant they raised in the farmyard. Grown men chanting with the voices of thirteen year old boys? Besides, you're lying flat on your back on a bed. Remember? If they're right in front of you they're hovering in mid-air on their fronts. Therefore, hallucination."

Famke made herself look as the Zulus ran at her and stabbed. Then evaporated, as she faced the hallucination down, staring it in the face and mastering her fear.

 _What did Sandra see when she laid down on this couch?_ was quickly followed by _Yuck, I'm sharing a bed with Sandra Venturi? Ewww!_

She tried to calm her pounding heart down with deep, regular, breathing. The pictures stopped for a while. She sensed that these were thoughts and memories and feelings that were somehow being made intense, maybe because her brain still had to operate but there wasn't really much for it to operate _with_ justnow. She tried to focus on good ones, without success. Family. Friends.

Then the woman appeared, standing at the bedside. She flickered in and out of focus and Famke regarded her, without fear. She looked a little bit like Mum, with maybe a hint of Aunt Mariella. She was attractive, late twenties perhaps, but had some awful scars on her face… Famke tried to recall family history.

 _Well, kleine kryger_. the woman said, in Vondalaans. Her voice faded in and out with her picture. _…can talk to_ _you… here…. speak to your sisters… proud of you…. Never forget…. watching…._

She leaned forward as if to kiss Famke on the cheek. Then the image faded and a hand was on her shoulder, shaking her gently.

Miss Glynnie.

"Let us leave?" she heard her teacher, her voice far and faint. "Hard to talk in here."

Miss Glynnie took her hand and Famke stood up, feeling strangely disembodied. She led Famke out of the dark place.

They left by a different door – Famke had simply not noticed it – and sat in a dimly lit room. It still seemed painfully, agonisingly, bright.

Hot tea was there. With lemon and mint. The taste was exquisite.

"It is best you recover in here for twenty minutes or so." Miss Glynnie said. "Everyday sensations tend to be painful when you return to the sensory world."

"Miss. What was that place?"

Miss Glynnie gave Famke a smile.

"I call it the Sensory Deprivation Chamber." she said. "My idea was to give selected students a brief taste of what it is to live, as I do, in a world without sound. To test how they adapt to loss of a primary sense and how to deal with that. To develop strategies. Then I considered. Why not deprive them of _all_ their senses? Insofar as is possible. Do you remember, Famke, I said to you, explicitly, in there, there is nothing at all? Only _you_?"

"I remember." Famke said. "You did warn me."

Miss Glynnie smiled.

"In there, with everything else stripped away, you begin to discover who you really are." she said. "The realisation came as a shock to Cassandra, unfortunately. The Dark Council believes it has merit as a training aid and as a test. When the idea is further refined, it may be used as a stage on the Final Run, perhaps. Or else, all pupils on the last year of the Black will each spend one hour in there. No longer. You were privileged. _You_ got to experience it five years ahead of time. Now shall we discuss your experiences?"

Afterwards, Miss Glynnie smiled. She held a hand out to Famke.

"If you're willing, I am prepared to teach you more about living in a world without physical sensation." she said. "We can go in there together for advanced tuition. And here, informally, between just the two of us, I have no objection to you addressing me as Ethylene."

"Thank you, Miss." Famke said, dutifully. "Er. _Ethylene_."

And Famke returned to her dorm, humming the _De La Rey_ song.

People looked at her, anxiously.

"Kay? What happened?"

Famke grinned at them.

"Not a lot, really. Nothing at all. Really. Nothing at all. Sandra's just an idiot."

Later on, she did explain, guardedly, that it was _nothing at all_ with a specifically Assassin-teacher slant to it. People were more inclined to accept this.

A day or so later, a subdued and somehow altered Cassandra Venturi returned to the dorm. People were understanding. _Nothing at all_ had happened to her. Kay had said so.

* * *

 **(1)** Because there have to be footnotes. Johanna and Ponder originally had six servants, wished on them by Aunt Friejda, who meant well. Then they got a very young nanny out of the Phlaanders country. The Boy was from Rimwards Howondaland and allowed to work overeas as a domestic servant to white people. Such privileged black Howondalandians got special Passes to facilitate this. The Girl was barely seventeen and white. And, well, things started happening that apartheid law would dissaprove of. Johanna had a quiet word with Uncle Pieter, who understood the foibles of human nature. They decided the kindest thing to do was to rescind the Overseas Residency Pass for the Boy and send him back to the Homeland - albeit with very good glowing references and a guaranteed good job. Johanna still felt bad about this. And she determined it was not a tale her daughter should get to hear. Not justnow, anyway. It's in a story somewhere, possibly a Discworld Tarot short: Susan Sto Helit, as the nearest thing to a Guild of Nannies leader, was consulted for her advice. And everybody in the household now cleans their own damn boots.

 **(2)** Johanna had suggested to Miss Glynnie that Ponder took her up into the dome of the Library at Unseen University, where there were some truly interesting acoustics. The Shouting Gallery, the Screaming Gallery and the Laryngitis Gallery **(3)** had been explored. See my tale **_Hear Them Chatter On The Tide._**

 **(3)** Named after Arch-Chancellor Laryngitis.

 **Notes Dump:-**

 **Bloody hell. I have discovered there is a real-life Olga Romanoff. She lives in London and is the linear descendant of the last Tsar; her supporters and diehard royalists give her the title of Princess Olga, although this carries no legal or other status in Russia (she is, I believe, free to visit if she wishes, provided she doesn't use the title), and she appears to accept there is no realistic chance of her becoming Tsarina any time soon. She seems pleasantly OK, by royal standards, but nothing like the way I visualise my Olga at any point in her life.**

 **I have also discovered a stupendously, awfully, atrociously bad novel with the title of "Olga Romanoff – Syren of the Skies" in which the exiled heiress to the throne takes solace in flight. Now what are the chances of that?**

 **At least it gives me Olga's Pegasus Service nose-art and callsign: "Syren". I couldn't do anything else, could I?**

 **A sample of the peerless Victorian prose, in which Olga is described thusly:**

 **"The other was a young girl, in all the pride and glory of budding womanhood, and beautiful with the dark, imperious beauty that is transmitted, like a priceless heirloom, along a line of proud descent unstained by any drop of base-born blood.**

"Yet in her beauty there was that which repelled as well as attracted. No sweet and gentle woman-soul looked out of the great, deep eyes, that changed from dusky-violet to the blackness of a starless night as the sun and shade of her varying moods swept over her inner being. Her straight, dark brows were almost masculine in their firmness; and the voluptuous promise of her full, red, sensuous lips was belied by the strength of her chin and the defiant poise of her splendid head on the strongly-moulded throat, whose smooth skin showed so dazzlingly white against the dark purple velvet of the collar of her dress.

"It was a beauty to enslave and command rather than to woo and win; the fatal loveliness of a Cleopatra, a Lucrezia, or a Messalina; a charm to be used for evil rather than for good. In a few years she would be such a woman as would drive men mad for the love of her, and, giving no love in return, use them for her own ends, and cast them aside with a smile when they could serve her no longer." ( From:

OLGA ROMANOFF  
OR  
The Syren of the Skies

A SEQUEL TO "THE ANGEL OF THE REVOLUTION"

BY GEORGE GRIFFITH)

To which my Olga might shake her head, scowl, and make reference to "govno"... Irena might be moved to snark on reading this.


End file.
